Bel's Wood

With access sorted and the pheasant shooting season having come to an end, the gorse clearance has started. About 2 hectares of gorse are being pulled up by their roots and flayed to mulch which will add nutrients to the land. This creates space to plant the new trees. The contractor was chosen months ago following a site visit last summer on a hot sultry day. The plan had been ‘start February’ and they started on 1st February 2022. Two pieces of heavy machinery have worked systematically from north to south pulling the gorse up by the roots, making a pile on a clear piece of ground then a second machine has flayed it down to small pieces of wood and twigs.  I chose this contractor (Tree Clear) as they understood what I wanted. This isn’t a brutal clearance of everything but removal of a some of the large, old leggy patches of dense gorse where nothing much happens. They have done an excellent job of working delicately around young oaks, hawthorns, silver birch, holly bushes and eve