Bel's Wood

Every year feels like a big year at Bel’s Wood! Year 0 2020 - Find and Buy the land Year 1 2021 - Develop a plan to create a woodland Year 2 2022 - Prepare the land and apply for the woodland creation grant Year 3 2023 - Buy and plant the trees Year 4 2024 - Lay mulch mats and control bracken around the 4,294 saplings Year 5 2025 - Watch them grow! As spring arrives I am looking to see how well the trees that were planted last year have established themselves. I will have lost some just through the process of planting and others through the conditions last year. I was lucky with plenty of rain with no periods of drought but by September, the amount of rain we had had, was causing a problem. Those saplings that had not grown beyond the top off the tree guards were going mouldy! I took those guards off where I spotted this happening but some will have perished.  Some saplings were shaded out by the bracken despite the huge effort put in last year to get round them all in time ...

Over the three years I have got to know and experience Bel's Wood I have named special places & special trees. I have adopted the language of 'zones' to develop the planting plan to apply for a woodland creation grant and communicate clearly what work I wanted the various contractors who have helped prepare and then plant the land to complete. Now that the trees are in the ground I want to change back to calling places by their 'found' names. I have drawn out the areas below and will describe the areas of the wood and the trees that have been planted there. I've highlighted named trees and a few special locations. Yellow - areas Green - named trees Blue - functions Home (lower part of Zone 1) 80 trees planted This is where the access gate is from the road that runs along the bottom of the wood on the east side and runs parallel with the River Gilpin. There is an apron of rising grassy land which was previously engulfed in bracken but there is little evidence...