A passion for Trognes

On a Monday night in September 2012 we went over to La Rabiniere at Betz-le-Chateau to a book talk organised by the "Champs des Livres" association.

The author was a man passionate about "Les trognes" which is the main title of his book.
The passionate man was Dominique Mansion who founded and runs the Maison Botanique at Boursay in Loir et Cher.

I pollarded our old willows because I love trees and knew that they were old and needed a haircut...
I was also aware of the wildlife that a pollarded tree supports...
but my knowledge pales beside Dominique's!
He spoke of the history of the pollard, the reasons, the wildlife...
he spoke quietly, intensely and with burst of loud emphasis.
He was utterly captivating...
so much so that I would have bought the book afterwards...
if I hadn't already bought a copy as we went in!!

After the talk he was doing signings...
and I asked him to dedicate it to "The Pre de la Forge" as we've recently registered the main part of our land as a reserve with the LPO.
What I hadn't realised was that he would do this...

The book dedication and a quickly drawn picture
Everyone who asked for a dedication got a sketch... every one different!!

He has also brought out an "Agenda" for 2013, so I bought a copy of that too...
not to use as a diary...
but a book to record what I've been doing to and finding in the field.
His illustrations are marvelous...
both detailed where needed and beautifully freely drawn where the impression is what counts.

Agenda [or diary] for 2013

The trogne goes back to prehistory...
the oldest example of a pollard was found on the bed of the River Trent and dates to 3400 years BP [before the present]...
which makes sense as a store of shafts and rods would have been needed then as now.
Pollarding, or coppicing, may well have developed earlier than this...
as man observed the way the trees regrow after being cut....
or, as stated in this book, after beavers had been at work.

I have used the term 'trogne'...
this is a French regional word for a pollard...
and, because he was told off, as a schoolboy...
for using "patois" in an essay, when the accepted French term is tetard...
he maintained an interest in the trogne and has now documented in this wonderful work...
the history...
the reasons...
the types...
the products...
the by-products...
and the wildlife associated with pollarded trees.
Well done, that teacher!!

This year, I started the first new 'trognes' in this meadow...
which are already providing cover for birds and food for insects and their predators.
In two years time, I will make the next batch....
in three, I will recut this years...
and also the first of the old ones.

And, in the meantime, the willow species that I have planted here will become trognes...
cutting rods at waist height is much easier than coppicing.
There will be some areas of coppice though...
because as a method for harvesting wood, it supports other species and a different flora.

But...
there are trognes everywhere in this region...
in every vineyard at least one Golden Osier glows in the winter sunshine...
providing a source of flexible rods for the vignerons.
However, the old pollards...
especially the willows...
are as neglected as ours were...
loosing branches and dying slowly...
until they get grubbed out to make the landscape tidier...
removing not only the habitat they provide...
but history.

Time for a beer... Ooops, sorry!... an update...

Well, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since my last post...
but we are waiting with bated breath to see if it will continue to flow.

The view from the bridge towards the weir...

The authorities in Indre-et-Loire have decided to have a major 'clean up' of the river system to try and help the native Brown Trout [Salmo trutta fario] Truite fario and other species [eg; the Eels [Anguilla anguilla] Anguille d'Europe increase in number.

So far here this has resulted in work to the river bed of the Aigronne...
which we blogged about here and also here...
but now it is the turn of the banks [or berges] along our stretch to be fettled.
Yohann, the River Technician, wants our stretch to remain pretty much as is...
too much having been removed either side of us.
He has identified a couple of trees that will need to be dealt with...
but these can be 'tetard'ed [pollarded in English] and I have identified some others that I would like to have done...
and these will be included.

What is worrying us, however,  is what will be happening with the millstream [bief]....
there has just been a meeting with Richard, our neighbour, concerning his vanne [sluice in English] and the impedance of fish migration that it supposedly causes.
If they cannot come up with a method of helping the trout, etc. pass it...
they are talking about destroying the weir [barrage] at the end of our property.
That will leave the millstream as a series of stinking pools in the summer...
full of mozzies...
not nice at all.
Not for us, our health and our future.
It would probably mean that we would have to infill with rocks to create a dry bed in the summer...

The wier at the end of our property

Just as worrying is the fact that this will also destroy the water gradient across the meadow...
depriving the new willows and the existing vegetation of water in the summer months.
The type of vegetation that we have in the water meadow has evolved to survive in damp places...
things like the reedgrass, the Ragged Robin [Lychnis flos-cuculi] Fleur de Coucou and the Snake's-head Fritillary [Fritillaria meleagris] Fritillaire pintade....

It will also destroy history.
The bief has been in place since the 11th Century...
supplying waterpower to two mills.
The trout managed happily then...
and aren't impeded by Richard's sluice as he has it open when they are migrating anyway...
as would have been the old mill sluices.
[This to avoid damage in winter when the water is flowing at its fastest and strongest.]

The fishermen, however, to make up for the loss of native Brown Trout...
have been introducing trout...
apparently these are 'triploid' females and therefore infertile.
The native males now have a one in four chance of meeting a fertile female which.... 
surprise, surprise....
decreases their recovery still further.
The fish farms create the infertile females by giving the eggs an electric shock...
it is in their interest to create these, as people have to keep going back for more.
And they will go back for more of these...
they increase in weight far more quickly than the fertile native females!

One of two Brown Trout caught in an electrical fishing survey near our house!!

We wait!!

But not with bated breath...
not in France!!

One man went to mow...

...went to mow a meadow! At the moment in my case, it is one man and his cat to follow on.

We have around two hectares to mow....
that's around five acres in English money...
and the grass needs to be removed...
to lower the fertility and allow the weaker species to grow more successfully...
and hamper the efforts of  les orties* [nettles].

To mow we have "Betsy"...
our big two-wheel tractor with its 53" cutter bar.
To rake we have me and a Bulldog wooden rake...
so at the moment we slowly get a field full of humps and rows that become humps....
and humps that become bigger humps....
and so on....
and on!

Driving Betsy... the grimace is obligatory (as is the hat!)

When Betsy arrived she wasn't heavy enough at the cutter bar, so a cut of around three inches...
[or fifteen centimetres... I am of old measure]...
became a one foot high trim whenever the wheel hit a molehill.
It was very tiring to use and left me aching...
then the suppliers Trackmaster sent me two weights to attach to the bar and all changed...
she still bucks at humps but it is easier to get the front down again and she is, overall, more controllable...
which is vital when working near the willows!!

It is a big meadow.... this is the smaller bit....

The other reason for being able to mow large areas quickly and easily is that the meadow has Creeping Thistle [Cirsium arvense] Chardon des champs...
which needs to be kept cut before it flowers and the wind dispersed seed blows everywhere.
This is what the Wildlife Trusts have to say on the subject.
So you can see that it would not be beneficial to the birds to erradicate it completely...
not that I think I could!!

The selected areas of nettles [*les orties] that I am mowing are to reduce their competition with the grass.
I have no intention of trying to win the that battle either as...
[1] we want the butterflies that use nettle as a foodplant for the young... and
[2] we use the nettles as fertilizer and occasionally as food.
Well, that's my excuse, anyhows!!

Still mowing.... here at least you can see one of the paths along the edge of the bief (millstream).

Betsy is manufactured in Italy by part of the Ferrari works and moves at walking pace...
so I'm driving one of the slowest Ferraris on the planet....
but there is a big advantage with that...
we are working the land for the wildlife it contains and being able to stop instantly and walk forward to inspect for nests when birds fly up is a great help...
also, by cutting the grass and not chopping it with a flail or a whirling blade, allows the grass to fall aside and allows small beasts to fly, walk, run away.

Occasionally I get flying voles...
these rocket out of the grass and run along on the top, before diving back into the sward...
when they run ahead, this is usually repeated a few seconds later.

One of the first 'humps' is visble to my right in this picture.... it grew as the year wore on....
and had finished at around this height when I mowed through it last week.
We will be able to harvest compost from the bigger of these piles.

Betsy has another attachment...
a big wood-chipper that can handle up to three inch trunks....
but that's another posting.

/|________________________________________________|\

* Les Orties = The Nettles

(Thank you Susan for the correction.  

[The Nettles is a Celtic band - J.Nettles is an actor])

2010 & 11... Almost caught up!

As mentioned at the end of the last post we started off the willow plantation.
I purchased and collected the willows from Yorkshire Willow...
they came as 10" cuttings... well, lengths...
of one year old stem with about six to ten buds.

The willow sticks in their nursery bed...
some were too young to leave home!!

The idea is to plant each length of willow stem where it is going to finally be...
in our meadow?
You are joking!!...
it was difficult enough to find them the way I planted these ones.

The willows were of seventeen different varieties in bundles of ten.
One hundred and seventy twigs...
what we bought are listed below [the ones introduced as 20cm cuttings]...
and should be buried with around two inches/two buds above ground.
So I decided to create two nursery areas...
the one pictured above and another one in a damp spot out in the meadow.

On each row I used a Crack Willow stick to hold the label on the left in the photo above...
this year I will plant out the twenty-odd young Crack willow volunteers that were the result...
they will form a coppice area towards the riverbank.

These are the Sekka catkins...
grey against the red bark.

The majority of the bought 'twigs' took hold in the pictured nursery area...
but the success rate was poor in the meadow.
That wasn't surprising...
I purchased them in late March and planted them in early April...
not really the right time...
and as we were still in the UK for much of 2010...
they weren't able to be regularly watered either.

These are the wonderful Cohu Blue catkins...
they start steel blue-grey, then "heat-up" and, finally...
catch fire.

These young trees were then planted out in blocks...
or patches where there were only two or three survivors...
last year...
the year of the very hot, dry summer....
again not at all good for young trees that haven't got roots down deep.
If you look at the tree list page, you will see a column marked survivors 2012...
I will be going round next week trimming the survivors down to two or three buds on each shoot...
[and planting the cuttings deep, in situ, to extend the blocks/patches].


Tree Table of those species on site

English Name	Species	French name [if any]	Survivors [2011]	Uses	Comments
Crack Willow	Salix fragilis	Saule fragile	N/A	Coppice for biomass	On site
White Welsh	Salix fragilis decipiens		1 ex 10	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
White Willow	Salix alba	Saule blanc	(3) ex 10	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Scarlet Willow	Salix alba 'Chermesina'		10	Coppice for colour	Introduced from cuttings
Flanders Red	Salix alba fragilis		3 ex 10	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Golden Willow	Salix alba vitellina	Osier doré	5 ex 10	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Dog Willow or Sage-leaf Willow	Salix candida		6 ex 10		Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Tora	Salix viminalis tora		5 ex 10	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Continental Purple	Salix daphniodes	Saule faux-daphné	10 ex 10	Coppice for rods, colour and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Black Willow	Salix nigricians		2 ex 10	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Bay Willow	Salix pentandra	Saule a cinq étamines	9 ex 10	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Purple Osier	Salix purpurea	Osier rouge	5 ex 10	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Cohu Blue	Salix purpurea		8 ex 10	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Green Dicks	Salix purpurea		3 ex 10	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Sekka	Salix sachalinensis		9 ex 10	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Black Maul	Salix triandra		11 ex 20	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Common Osier	Salix viminalis		5 ex 10	Coppice for rods, colour and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Grey Willow	Salix cinerea	Saule cendré	1		On site
Eared Sallow	Salix aurita	Saule à oreillettes	1		Self seeded at allotment
Pussy or Goat Willow	Salix caprea	Saule marsault	1	Plant more as early bee fodder	Self-seeded - On site by bridge

A Bit of Fencing.... 2009

We had a break from the felling routine in 2009 and did some planting [as before] and some fencing.

The fencing was needed to define the boundary between our property and the neighbouring field...
the original fence was very 'tired' and in places...
completely missing [having, in our absence, been driven straight through by a digger!!]

The fencing was done in two stages...
when Stuart was here, in March, we aimed to get the posts in place and the strainers fixed up with the three carry wires attached and strained.
The strainers were done as "Colonial" two post, rather than the more usual post and a diagonal.
This technique lends itself to rocky soil like ours...
where it is difficult to dig a decent post hole to a good depth.

I've seen the method used quite a lot around here...
so it is not a strange thing to see a double header version at a corner or bend, the central post of three being the 'joint'.
And just recently I've seen a triple upright, double tensioner version over near Chaumussay.

This is the major fence line, the one between the properties.
The "Colonial" strainer is in and tensioned and the post line is in place.
The thin posts are rose poles that I used as sighting poles...
the most difficult part of fencing is getting the line right in the first place!

You will see from the picture that a winder is used to tension the frame...
when fixing the stock fence in place, you start to strain up the fence at the second post...
leaving the piece that covers the strainer frame able to be removed as necessary for re-tensioning the fenceline.
All the posts used were reclaimed chestnut ones from other places on the site...
mainly from the bank of the bief.

Stuart and I managed to get both the lines finished and the straining wires in place without much difficulty...
despite using 'second-hand' posts.

This is a corner of the second fence line, the one by the road.
The three strainer wires can be seen quite clearly.
The wooden rail from the corner is not a "colonial" strainer,
but a length of timber performing much the same function on a very short run.

When Pauline and I returned in May, we stapled the stock fencing in place on most of the fence line, leaving just two sections that I will be completing in the next couple of weeks...
"honest?".
This entailed rolling out the cattle mesh and crimp-stapling it to the top wire...
before going back down the line and doing the same on the other two...
trying to hold a 22 kilo roll of cattle mesh upright and unroll it at the same time is no joke...
it seems to be very tired and wants to lie down all the time!!
But we got there...
with much shouting and cussing!!

This is the main fence line, once the cattle mesh has been added.
You will see that the bottom wire does not run along the bottom of the mesh,
but along the next 'rung' up... this allows the mesh to be 'moulded' along the ground.
Any bigger irregularities are taken care of with offcuts of mesh wired on and buried.

In 2010 we did more planting and started the willow plantation...

Five old Saules... part four of the saga - 2008

Making a start...
removing the small and dead branches.

The routine continued... but like last year we had my wife with us, so Stuart and I were able to crack on much quicker, leaving Pauline to cook and clean up after us!
Well, not really...
the third pair of hands actually meant that some of the more difficult tasks were...
"three head, six hand" jobs.

Lopping the easy branches first to clear the view.

And that was really useful...
especially when we hit a big snag...
the last trunk to fall.
It had a twist...
and didn't give any indication of a bias to fall any particular way.

The last three branches...
the last one is the furthest left...
with a great big double bend!

So whilst I stood and looked, and paced around the tree.....
and stood and looked, and paced around the tree.....
and stood and looked, and paced around the tree.....
Pauline kept me supplied with coffee and helped Stuart shift the timber from the first branches that we'd dropped.

Eventually I decided to rope guide the direction of fall.
That meant getting a rope around the trunk as high as possible...
higher than I could get with the ladder.
There was a group of three branches slightly lower than I'd have liked to position the rope...
but they were reachable with a hammer throw.

A strong string attached to the hammer, it was hurled violently upward towards the first branch of the trio...
and my aim was good.
Yes, I hit the branch square on!!

Second try missed it perfectly and the string was over the first...
and by sheer luck, the second.
Fate was sitting up there watching....
and having a good laugh....
I hit the third branch a glancing blow and the hammer fell....
back over the second branch!
Threw it back over the second branch on the third attempt....
and eventually the third!!
The rope was then hauled over and round, a slip hitch tied and it was pulled tight to the tree.

Because I didn't have a winch of any sort, the other end was anchored near the bief...
a metal bar was then "looped" into place about halfway between the two anchor points.
We attached three long butt-ends of the other branches to the rope...
just above the metal bar...
as it took Stuart and I to raise the ends into position whilst Pauline tied them into place...
I would estimate that we had the pulling power of about four people at that point...
but in the form of undamageable logs.

I was cutting from the back of the tree which meant that I was going to be higher up than the bole... this was alright by me...
it meant that I could cut straight through, with just a shallow sapwood cut lower down to stop the bark tearing.
Once felled, I tidied up by doing a second clean cut to finish off.

A tidy, cleaned up bole and a stack of firewood.
The darker wood is a previous years harvest.

Job's a goodun...
all five trees pollarded [tetardé]

The view with all the trees pollarded.

Then, after the last bonfire....

The smoke from the last bonfire drifts Eastwards across the meadow.

....it was back to tree planting...
mainly extending the areas we had already worked on...
and getting more young twigs into the tree nursery.

The view of the nursery area from the kitchen window.

The row of trees nearest the bief are waiting to be lifted.
There are three trees in the green binbag, waiting to be planted out...
some root loss was unavoidable, but as before...
we compensated by planting deeper.

The duckboards over the already dug soil can be clearly seen in this shot from the bridge.

The duckboards allowed us to dig the trees out without us getting bogged down in the soft mud.

Once all the trees were out, new rods were planted behind where you see the duckboards...
in virgin soil...
this is to allow time and tide to refill the 'used' area.

Other small and specimen trees, including some Scarlet Willow...
and a spawn of the Headingly "Original Oak"...
were planted out in the verger.

The nursery bed in the verger for the smaller and specimen trees.
The "Original Oaks" are in the blue-green pot.

Five old Saules... part the third. 2007 and the heat is on!!

By this point Stuart and I had got into a routine.
Cut the 'trees' off the top of the old pollard....
deal with the usable timber, plant trees, cut rods...
and refill the cattle splash.

Why 'trees'...
mainly because that is what they were...
pollarding usually takes place between ten and twenty five years after a cut...
only really dependent on what wood you are trying to harvest.

With the final tidying of the tree nearest the bridge I was able to take a nice oblique slice at the base of one of the branches and this made counting rings easier....
all forty-one of them....
the trees were last 'tetarded' in 1964.

This tied in with the old 'milk record' books that we found....
the milking and managing as a farm ceased in 1985.
The twenty-five year cut would have been due in 1989 and, by this time, the owner was using it as a holiday home a couple of times a year.
The farm was managed, the owner was a 'pub landlord' in Poitiers.
So no one bothered.

We want firewood...
so will probably take a second cut at ten years from  the four strongest [2015 to 2019].
I am now thinking of using the weakest one, that we cut in 2006, as a source of rods....
it also seems to be a slightly different colour to the rest.

We chose the second tree from the bridge as this year's 'victim' and proceeded to drop branches.
The method was as follows...
cut down an outward leaning 'trunk', process, stack and pile the 'lop & top' up ready for burning.
All progressed well but...
not for long.

The fourth branch twisted slightly as it fell, and landed, absolutely horizontal, on the first tree...
fortunately for us, it landed inbetween the two growing points!!

The snagged branch, lying across the space...
would make a good hammock spot?

But it was still attached. How to deal with that?
My proceedure was as follows...

I started by cutting off all the branches furthest away...
until I arrived at the 'snag' point...
the first pollard...
unfortunately I didn't think to take photos...
I was too busy trying to get the branch down!

Rope two fully extended Acroprops just forward from the butt end to form a tripod.

Cut out the section beween the props and the tree...
leaving the trunk supported at the props and the first tree.

Stuart and I then pulled the two Acros away [using ropes], until the trunk reached the ground safely.

Undercut the trunk in sections until the end that was resting in the first tree was almost upright.

Climb ladder resting on first tree and with a Y-pole push the last length over...
snag removed.
Safely!

Final cuts made, it was time to tidy up.

All timber cut, stacked under tree 1 and the whole area tidied.

It was then OK to fell the rest, section them and stack the good timber up to dry
When the last branch had been dealt with in this way, then it was time for a bonfire.

More timber stacked on right;
Stuart by the bonfire and the area of branches in the foreground
is creating a habitat for insects, birds and small mammals.

As the fire got going so did the heat...
you can see the haze in the top left of this picture.

Once we'd cleaned up, it was onto the tree planting.
We had had a greater success with the young rods, about fifty percent take...
but lost a lot as a result of our infrequent visits in the height of summer.
Yes! I can hear you gasp....
"house in France and they don't use it in the summer?"

Well, no we didn't, we had 600 sq.yds of allotment to take care of in Leeds!
That was feeding us [on the veggie and fruit front at least] and needed tending to almost constantly.
We hadn't lost, however, more than three of the rods that were crammed into the 'cattle splash' nursery.

We left the 2007 rods in the now 'less than temporary' keeping pond and began to lift the young trees from the nursery.
Using a sharp spade, I cut down through the roots between each tree, one at a time, and then Stuart would pull it over and I'd cut through the tap root and we'd get a bin bag over the root block.
Once we had a barrow load [about half a dozen trees] we'd then move on to planting them.
We weren't precious about this....
it was...
[i] dig a hole large enough to get the root block into comfortably and about ten centimetres deeper,
[ii] stuff root block into the hole,
[iii] back fill and stomp heavily to firm the tree in and pile what didn't go back in around the tree.
No staking, no feeding, no nice compost...
they were on their own, planted about twenty centimetres deeper than they had been in the nursery.

We used these to 'beat up' the 2006 failures along the ditch towards the house and add to the two  survivors in the clump.

Next it was 'beat up' the line along the bief and extend it towards the 'Five old Saules'.
Once that was done we crammed eighty new rods into the nursery and put the rest out into the original two areas from 2005 to extend those.

As you will read in the next installment of the saga, we stuck to this routine for 2008.