Land Manager's Diary: Read it here>

BOOK onto one our upcoming workparties>

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It was a damp and misty Monday in Mike’s Wood this week but we had a big turnout for our woodland workparty, thank you everyone who joined us.

We often forget what we have achieved and how we are unique in linking our policy work to our work on the ground. Our land and projects put our policies on landscape into practice on the ground, in effect they bring them alive for people and really show what we can achieve and how it benefits our beautiful landscapes, wildlife and people.

All we have achieved at Mike’s Wood in the last 30 years is a good reminder of that. Mike’s Wood created a new native woodland, but what was innovative about it was that it used seed bank research (from the bed of Windermere) and the knowledge of Dr John Rodwell at Lancaster University to devise a planting plan that mimicked the ancient woodland that used to be on the land but had long since gone.

Many years later, Forest Research expressed surprise at how well the planting had established so perhaps the early research paid off. It was another busy day, we had a wall gap to fix, the main path through the wood to clear, some tree tubes to remove, and a bit of coppicing to do.

We also met up with our woodland neighbour Harold to learn more about the wildlife we have in the woods, and also compare notes with how he manages his beautiful ancient semi natural woods next door. Watch out for our virtual tour of Mike’s Wood that will go live later this year as we took a video of Harold talking about his wildlife encounters in the wood that we will include in the tour, very funny but very inspiring.

The primroses and wild daffodils were out, the birds were singing, and even on a wet, rather miserable day it was once again uplifting to be out in these beautiful woods. Harold’s woods show many characteristics of temperate rainforest and it was interesting to compare to ours and see the march of the mosses and lichens, they may be behind Harold’s but are definitely colonising. 

Next week is our final tree planting event at High Borrowdale, so join us if you can. BOOKING and info here>