An update from Tom Thorn
The group’s activities towards the end of last year was mainly cutting back paths – there was a spate of fallen trees to clear. As they had a habit of falling down within a week of the last work party, it was almost a month before we could deal with them.
Despite these flagging trees, on the whole Well Wood lacks the decaying and dead trees which provide the best conditions for wildlife. It means we need to put up artificial bat and bird boxes to help when they want to nest.
How you can help our bats and birds
When people stray from the main paths, they create new routes. This not only damages the plants (like our wonderful bluebells) but it creates a health and safety issue too. As visitors wear new routes,
we need more tree inspections to make sure the trees around them are safe. Any unsafe trees have to be cut back – and with that, the benefits for the birds and bats are gone. We’re doing what we can to counter this, and the group has started to put up replacement bird and bat boxes as the previous ones put up many years ago have long reached the end of their lives. But you can also help: sticking to the paths sets a great example to others. It helps stop new paths forming, it means we don’t need to cut down trees unnecessarily, and, because there’s less disturbance, it creates a better environment for our bats and birds.
We’re planting to promote new growth
While some trees are reaching their end (or at least taking a more relaxed pose) the group has been working with trees at the other end of the scale too. We’ve been planting up areas and gapping up hedgerows. Two notable trees we’re planting are elms, provided by the organisation Elms4London. They’re trying to restock all the London Boroughs with elms resistant to Dutch elm disease.
Elms were once a common sight with their billowing tops, but alas most of the large mature trees have now died. As a direct result, the population of White-letter Hairstreak butterflies has crashed too. They breed in the elm trees in hedgerows, woodland rides and scrub.
But it’s not the end entirely, because the elms send up suckers from the old roots. These grow quite happily for about 20 years before their trunks become more woody and the beetle that carries the Dutch elm disease spores can burrow in and infect the tree.
Well Wood has quite a few elm suckers around the Rouse farm borders and hedgerows around the Nash area. It’s likely that due to trimming they’ve never reached the more woody state, so they’ve avoided reinfection. The hope is that the resistant elms will one day reach a decent size and age and once more form a sadly missed sight in the countryside.
A good place to see some hardy surviving elm trees is Brighton’s Preston Park. This park was once home to the ‘Preston Twins’, two magnificent elms, thought to be planted around 1613. The last one finally succumbed to Dutch elm disease in 2019, but standing over 100 feet tall, and 23 feet wide, the twins are definitely giving us something to aim for.
Get involved!
The Friends of Well Wood meet at 10am in Layhams Road car park, on the third Saturday of the month. For two to three hours they carry out tasks which benefit and enhance the wood for wildlife and visitors.