Illustration: Permaplans
Pollarding and lopping
Cutting trees back regularly instead of felling them: firewood, tool handles, fodder leaves – and the tree sprouts again.
Many broadleaf trees – willow, ash, hazel, lime, hornbeam – sprout again from dormant buds after a hard cut. Pollarding cuts the trunk at 2–3 m height, lopping takes the side branches. Every few years you can harvest again.
What it gives
- firewood and thin rods for wickerwork and tool handles,
- leaves as fodder or leaf litter for compost and mulch,
- more light for the plants below.
Pollards grow very old and with their hollows give a home to beetles, bats and owls.
In Garden Survival lopping gives firewood, special materials and leaf litter; afterwards the tree bears less for a few years.