Four Seasons for a Silver Birch (The Marion Tree)

The entrance to Bel’s Wood has a small clearing for a few cars and a gate to the country lane. I arrive and leave from this point on each visit. Right from the beginning I admired this mature Silver Birch overlooking the entrance. It always felt like a welcome and a farewell; grand but standing back; beautiful, tall and confident. It took a while but after a visit from some relatives to the wood I associated the tree with Marion and so I now call this tree The Marion Tree. I have photographed and taken videos of The Marion Tree in all seasons and thought I would collate them here as they begin to tell the story of Bel’s Wood and the work I have done there with help over the last 5 years.

I am pleased to find this photo which was taken the day I visited the wood for the first time in August 2020 when it was on the market. The gate was not in place at this point and I was fighting my way through the bracken to try and reach the perimeter to get a sense of the whole plot.

Two years later in May 2022 and the new growth of bracken is just getting going.

I received the England Woodland Creation Offer (grant) in August2022 and this enabled me to have a deer fence erected. Here is a picture of work in progress. All the vehicles, equipment and materials came in this way and with the wet summer made quite a mess of this area. Happily no long term damage was done as photos below will show.

The following May (2023) this captures the tranquility of the site with the sound of the breeze and bird song in the background. The bracken has started growing again and the hawthorn blossom is still in bloom. This is my welcome at each visit.

The following months of June and July 2023 show the bracken at full height and then after it had been cut by a mower. This area has had the bracken cut for 4 years in a row now and is definitely less vigorous which gives newly planted trees more light and less competition giving them a greater chance of getting away. This is a very successful planting area (see final photo) and the trees will shade out some of the bracken next year and may only need a bit of knocking back by hand from now onwards.

October 2023 and the leaves are turning golden. December 2023 with snow on the ground.

A different perspective taken 29th December 2023.

Jump forward to May 2024 and the saplings were planted in January and here the final job was being completed; adding mulch mats. The mats suppress weeds (grass and bracken), stabilise temperature and retain water in drought condition. We got them down just in time, early in the month, before the grass and bracken had set off again which you can see 2 weeks later on the right.

This is The Marion Tree in November 2025 with all her leaves having fallen. It shows how the new trees have progressed. There are Aspen planted here (the tall one in the foreground) with some Hazels (yellow leaves behind) and a variety of trees as I think the planters added what they had left as this was the last area planted. I wanted a good display of colour from the road and this will achieve that. The saplings have made a great start this year with very few failures. 

I don’t know how old The Marion Tree is but the life span of a Silver Birch in the UK is about 150 years. Quite a few of the mature Silver Birches further up the beck have come down in storms over the last years. There is a lot of Birch saplings naturally regenerating now but I cannot tell whether they are Downy Birch or Silver Birch when they are so small. I am hoping that I have some self seed Silver Birch to take the place of this and other elegant Silver Birches in the longer term as I only planted Downy Birch in the major planting of 2024. Writing this blog has reminded me to check this more closely in Spring time.