Coppice and pollard. How and why. 

I love your voice!

Wish I could hit fast forward on time itself and see how things look in a couple years, can't wait to see how things continue to progress

People here FREAK out when we do this, but then a year later they are like...oh. It's always so drastic looking at first, but also produces dramatic results!

One of my elder trees was attacked by honey fungus and all the top growth died back. I thought it was totally dead as the bootlace strands of the fungus were under the bark of the main stems. I cut those back to about 4-5 feet, not to pollard it, but to leave a climbing tree for my cat who loved to get up it. Lo and behold, new shoots sprouted, and I ended up with a magnificent tree. Fast forward some more years (about 24 in total) and there are some dead twigs, so I might just go to ground level this autumn to reset the clock. It's hard to believe that something as drastic as cutting a tree could actually save its life, even prolong it. As an aside, that same tree overcame a leaf fungal disease as a sapling with the help of only two applications of tea tree oil - about 20 drops to about 1 pint of lukewarm water, give it a good shake to disperse the oil droplets, and spray top and bottom of leaves. It seems elder has 9 lives like cats.

I am currently coppicng an old hawthorn hedge and it looks and feels so drastic I need regular reminders that I'm doing the right thing, so this is just what I needed to see. Thank you!

I have a weedy tree, right next to my house and possibly interfering with the foundation, that I've preliminarily diagnosed as American quaking aspen (I'm in Canada where it is native so that makes sense) that I've clipped at the root at least twice now, and it keeps shooting back up, putting on something like 70 or 75 inches over a season (and our growing season in Prince George, BC, is quite short). That instance of it is easily thin enough to cut down with a kitchen crusty bread saw, but still. Its conspecifics grow like weeds all over the grounds of my urban plot forward of the house, also, and there's one so tall that the neighbours have used self-help to cut its branches (not a course of action I disapprove of, if I'm honest).

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Wonderful been thinking about rocket stove and water heater myself.

01:57 If it's a maple sycamore, a sufficiently-old trunk that has never been coppiced or pollarded (or perhaps a long-overstood one) may be suitable for sugaring, like they do with both sugar and Norway maples in Eastern Canada and the northeast USA. Sugaring season is, to my knowledge, any time *after a hard freeze* during which the highs are above 0°C and the lows are below 0°C. If that doesn't happen where you are, your maples are likely not suitable for sugar.

great video, thanks. Can I pollard a youngish oak tree? too close to house unfortunately. Its trunk is about 10 cm diameter, but it is quite tall. Is this time of year ok to cut it,,, or should I wait until nov or december? I only have a hand saw. Would you recommend I cut it about 4 feet from ground?

It's a cliche, but isn't nature wonderful? The great thing about coppicing and pollarding is that the tree isn't starting from scratch. It's much better than planting new trees.