Quaker Wood Update March 2026

A big thank you for the continuing support from volunteers to plant replacement hedge plants at Quaker Wood.  As always, many hands make the job so much easier, and we planted 140 or so plants in around 2 hours.  So now we wait for the buds to burst and new growth to come from our trees and hedge into the second season of the wood.  Some plants have already made it to the top of the shelters and these should put on growth this year to start looking like young trees. 

There are plans to put a storage container at the south-east end the site, tucked in against the boundary.  This will be used for equipment for use at the wood and the nature reserve.  It will be painted green and will also have some screen planting.

Mark Nathanson, who works for the contractors who helped plan and plant two-thirds of the wood, gave us a talk at the end of January. He talked about what we could expect in the wood in the coming years. He said that since most woods are planted for timber, it is beneficial if the trees grow straight. This is why they are planted close together and we may have to do some thinning after about 15 years. He also said that grey squirrels may become a problem like in many other woods. They damage the trees. And he mentioned deer damage, which most of us know about from our gardens.

Mark had done some research into different types of soil improvers available when planting the beech trees in the site. There are 100 of these identifiable by metal labels on the posts. His study was successful, so he now knows what worked best, despite having lost several beech trees in the drought.

We will need to do some maintenance during the spring and summer. This includes weeding the hedge and within the tree guards and maintaining areas of stream bank.  Much of the stream banks will be left wild.  We plan to do this on the second Saturday morning of May and June and July if necessary. If you can help with this but are not on our volunteers mailing list, please contact

the secretary.

We hope that the coming summer will not be as challenging as last year in terms of the drought conditions that the trees had to survive last year. Incidentally, Mark commented that our trees had done much better than most others during the drought. Thanks again to our volunteers.

Anthony Stiff