I really enjoyed this. I hope I make it to Veddw this summer. I think we are so used to thinking of woods as packed thickly full of trees but I have read that in the old days it was often not so. The very first visitors to North America for instance reported that the Forests where the Native peoples hunted were like English Parkland with evenly spaced trees and clear lawns (ie short grassy turf). At the time and later no one believed them and as later settlers arrived and moved into forested areas no longer under native control they found the choked up,dark woods fitted the European idea of the wild forest. But in recent decades historians have looked again at those earliest reports and now think the Natives used regular fire and other management to indeed keep the forests where they hunted deer free from clutter and undergrowth and "weeds" and the later dark and overgrown woods that fitted the European idea of 'natural' was actually an abandoned and neglected landscape. So your open airy wood is really the best way and to prove it the Bluebells are spreading. I love that the deer have not the slightest taste for the Erythroniums. Thats a handy tip for someone. And it looks like a plant that is at its best en masse.
I think you’re right with your history - browsing animals will always have kept ‘lawns’ open in woodland. And not much grows beneath beech, when that arrived.
Rackham is a great read and also reminds us that the trees were dripping with lichen and moss, so would look very strange to us.
The art school renegade in me loves the television! (Seriously, don’t go to any art school degree shows if you don’t want to find TVs and screens implanted into all sorts of contemporary art work!) I’d be tempted to put something printed on the screen, maybe rotate what that is. Current ideas are a fading image of David Bowie (pick any album cover, but always ‘Heroes’ for me) or Evil Edna from ‘Willo the Wisp’ just because she’s a telly and the series was based in a wood. I’ll stop now, sorry…
I am awe of the work you have done. A carpet of erythroniums...how wonderful this is.
Thank you. I hope that one day - post us - the whole two acres will be full of them. Bluebells permitting.
What a lovely legacy that would be.
I think so. Imagine someone discovering it for the first time!
Thank you. I imagine that one day (after us) it may perhaps be a carpet of the whole two acres. If the bluebells permit.
How fortunate you are to have your own forest!🌳
You are absolutely right - it’s a wonderful thing to have and to be looking after.
You're so lucky, it's beautiful!
We are, that’s so true.
I really enjoyed this. I hope I make it to Veddw this summer. I think we are so used to thinking of woods as packed thickly full of trees but I have read that in the old days it was often not so. The very first visitors to North America for instance reported that the Forests where the Native peoples hunted were like English Parkland with evenly spaced trees and clear lawns (ie short grassy turf). At the time and later no one believed them and as later settlers arrived and moved into forested areas no longer under native control they found the choked up,dark woods fitted the European idea of the wild forest. But in recent decades historians have looked again at those earliest reports and now think the Natives used regular fire and other management to indeed keep the forests where they hunted deer free from clutter and undergrowth and "weeds" and the later dark and overgrown woods that fitted the European idea of 'natural' was actually an abandoned and neglected landscape. So your open airy wood is really the best way and to prove it the Bluebells are spreading. I love that the deer have not the slightest taste for the Erythroniums. Thats a handy tip for someone. And it looks like a plant that is at its best en masse.
I think you’re right with your history - browsing animals will always have kept ‘lawns’ open in woodland. And not much grows beneath beech, when that arrived.
Rackham is a great read and also reminds us that the trees were dripping with lichen and moss, so would look very strange to us.
The art school renegade in me loves the television! (Seriously, don’t go to any art school degree shows if you don’t want to find TVs and screens implanted into all sorts of contemporary art work!) I’d be tempted to put something printed on the screen, maybe rotate what that is. Current ideas are a fading image of David Bowie (pick any album cover, but always ‘Heroes’ for me) or Evil Edna from ‘Willo the Wisp’ just because she’s a telly and the series was based in a wood. I’ll stop now, sorry…
O, I never thought of doing that. But it would have to be Veddw relevant, I think… there’s a challenge.