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  • From: Rebekah Wilce <rebekah.wilce@gmail.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Pollarding
  • Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:27:46 -0400

Tameson, John et al,

I just learned a little more about this in a permaculture workshop today. A coppice would be a tree cut off at stump level and allowed to grow shoots. A pollard is cut off higher up, at about two meters as Wikipedia has it. Both create a different tree shape than a tree not treated in such a way-- more shoots coming out of the main trunk. This lends itself to easy regular harvesting of shoots to be used as firewood, fencing, stakes, in weaving and sculpture such as with willow, etc. and radically increases the tree's lifespan. It can be done on a 1-25 yr. rotation. Most deciduous hardwoods will coppice, so I would guess they could also be pollarded. In doing a site analysis and assessment as part of the course today, we found an old apple tree that had been coppiced. I believe I understood correctly that the cutting would be in late winter, so probably right around now. Interestingly to me, coppicing was the background of the medieval economy! (This is all from Ethan Roland of AppleSeed Permaculture, who taught the second part of a three-part course today at the Sullivan County Community College in New York.)

Bekah

*Pollarding* is a woodland
management<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodland_management>method of
encouraging lateral branches by cutting off a tree stem or minor
branches two metres or so above ground level. The tree is given a year to
regrow, after the initially cutting, but once begun, *pollarding* require
annual maintenance by pruning <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Pruning>. This
will eventually result in a somewhat expanded (or swollen) nodes topping the
tree trunk with multiple new side and top shoots growing from it.
A tree that has been pollarded is known as a *pollard*. A tree which has not
been pollarded is called a *maiden* or *maiden tree*; which also refers to
the fact that pollarding is normally first undertaken when the tree is quite
young. Pollarding older trees usually result in the death of the tree.
Pollarding is sometimes abused in attempts to curb the growth of older or
taller trees. However, when performed properly it is useful in the practice
of arboriculture <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arboriculture> for tree
management.

OK call me stupid. What is Pollarding? I went to the website and read about
cutting trees higher than a grazing animal, but the pictures look just like
the trees in my pasture which have had no such treatment. So what gives? and
why would someone want to do that? and how is it different than any other
kind of pruning?




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