POLLARDING is an ancient skill. It involves removing much of the upper part of a tree. The purpose is to make it safe, keep it at a pre-determined height or induce it to grow in a more useful way. Most frequently, the practice means cutting the tree severely back to a stump, typically 5ft or 6ft from the ground. It responds with thick new growth of leaves and branches. Once you start to notice pollarded trees, you find that they are many more than you supposed.
British planning authorities use the word 'pollarding' to describe the high pruning of established trees. The limbs of a beech in danger of dropping its branches may, therefore, be cut back at as high as 40ft to lighten the tree's load and reduce its vulnerability to wind. The correct word for this method of thinning the canopy is 'lopping'.
Pollarding is not the same as coppicing, which requires a tree to be cut back to ground level. Hazels, for example, may be coppiced to renew their growth and ensure that their nuts can easily be gathered. Until recently, the hard-pruned stems were used for wattle-and-daub construction work. Pollarding is a similar technique, but the cuts are made higher up the trunk, so animals such as deer and cattle cannot eat the fresh young growths.
In traditional societies, those fresh young growths are the main purpose of pollarding -the leafy, soft stems are cut to feed domestic animals. It is still an integral part of stock-raising in much of Africa and Asia, especially in such arid areas as the southern edges of the Sahara. Anthropologists tell us that some two-thirds of all African tree species-6,000 of them-may be pollarded to feed livestock.
Denne historien er fra February 08, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra February 08, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
