A Practical Guide to Converting Scrub into Coppice

Why Bother with Scrub?

Scrub gets a bad name. It arrives on land that has been left alone, and within a decade you have a tangled thicket of bramble, hawthorn and sycamore that seems to offer little beyond scratches and a place for rabbits to hide. But look a little closer and you will often find something worth saving: hazel stools that have been waiting patiently for light, ash saplings drawn up straight and slender, field maple tucked in among the thorns. Scrub is not the enemy of woodland. It is often the raw material for it.

Coppicing is the oldest form of woodland management in Britain, and it works on a simple principle. You cut a tree or shrub close to the ground on a rotation, and it sends up multiple new stems from the stump. Those stems grow fast, straight and useful, whether for hurdles, beanpoles, firewood or charcoal. Converting a patch of neglected scrub into a working coppice is slow, deliberate work, but it is within reach of anyone with a few hand tools, a strong back and a bit of patience.

Start by Reading the Ground

Before you cut anything, walk the site through all four seasons if you can. You need to know what is actually growing there. Hazel is the prize in most lowland scrub, recognisable by its rounded, serrated leaves and the pale, peeling bark on young stems. Ash has distinctive black buds set opposite one another on the twig, and field maple shows opposite buds too, with small winged seeds in autumn. These three are your target species. All coppice well. All respond vigorously to cutting.

Then identify what you do not want. Sycamore, rhododendron, laurel and snowberry are thugs. They cast dense shade, spread quickly and coppice either poorly or too well. Bramble is a special case: it protects regenerating seedlings from deer, so keep some of it, but do not let it smother everything. Note the soil, the drainage and which way the slope faces. Hazel and ash prefer heavier, damper ground. Field maple is more tolerant of drier, chalkier sites.

Clearing in Stages, Not in One Go

The single biggest mistake is to attack the whole area at once. A sudden flush of light on bare soil invites a riot of weeds, and you lose the shelter that your valuable saplings need to establish. Work in strips or blocks, clearing perhaps a fifth of the site each year. This gives you time, spreads the workload and keeps some cover on the ground at all times.

• Cut invasive scrub low to about 10–15 cm from the ground, using a clearing saw, bowsaw or loppers depending on stem size. Leave the cut stumps if they are hazel; grub out sycamore and rhododendron roots where you can, or you will be back next year.
• Retain every healthy hazel, ash and field maple sapling you find, even if it is leaning or half-shaded. Mark them with a cane or ribbon so you do not tread on them or cut them by accident.
• Stack cut material into habitat piles at the edge of the clearing rather than burning it all. Deadwood is one of the most valuable things you can leave behind for invertebrates, fungi and small mammals.
• Stump-treat the real problem species with a suitable herbicide applied immediately to the cut surface, if you are willing to use chemicals. Otherwise, expect to return and cut again in two or three years.

Do not treat this as a tidy-up operation. A little mess is fine, and the brash you leave scattered will suppress weeds and protect the ground while your chosen stems get away.

Introducing the Cutting Cycle

Once your chosen coppice stools are established and growing strongly, usually after two or three years of freedom from competition, you can begin cutting on a rotation. A standard hazel coppice cycle runs between seven and fifteen years, depending on what you want from it. Short rotations give you slender rods for hurdles and thatching spars. Longer rotations give you thicker material for firewood and tool handles.

Divide your coppice into as many coupes, or compartments, as there are years in your rotation. If you are cutting on a ten-year cycle, divide the wood into ten blocks and cut one each winter. This spreads the work and ensures a continuous supply of material of different ages across the site. Ash and field maple can be worked on similar cycles, though ash grows faster and may want eight to twelve years, while field maple is slower and happier at twelve to fifteen.

Always cut in winter, between November and early March, when the sap is down and the woodland is dormant. Cut stems as low as you can without damaging the stool, and make clean, angled cuts so water runs off the surface. Never cut a stool during the growing season; you will weaken it badly and invite disease.

Aftercare and Patience

New coppice regrowth is a magnet for deer, rabbits and voles. If you have a deer problem, you will need fencing or individual tree guards around the most valuable stools, at least for the first few years. Watch for ash dieback, which has hit the species hard across much of the UK; if you see dieback in your ash, favour hazel and field maple instead and remove the affected stems.

Expect the first rotation to be uneven. Some stools will sulk, others will shoot away. That is normal. Coppicing is a long conversation with a piece of land, and the wood will tell you what it wants if you pay attention. Within a decade, a scrappy thicket can become a productive, wildlife-rich coppice with a rhythm of its own.