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Hi all,

We have 3 acres of field around our farmhouse which is in Central Scotland at an elevation of approx 180m. Some lower parts of the fields are fairly poorly drained (lots of reeds and boggy at times). Although at the moment I've forgotten how windy it can be (we've had a long period of still weather) it can get pretty windy up here so I think we'd have to class it as an exposed site! Although we're planning to get some animals I don't think we need the whole area for grazing. I'd like to use an area for trees, partly just because I think it's a "good" thing to do, I'd also really like to be partly self-sufficient for firewood to feed a stove.

A local contact who plants trees up here has suggested Sitka spruce as a reliable choice (and has offered to get us some with his huge order). I'm not sure whether that's a good choice for firewood, I had hoped to plant Ash as a good choice for firewood but there seems to be some concern about its survival up here. We have various "one-off" trees around the place including a few ash and sycamore, and a beech hedge - so I was hopeful that ash might well survive.

Does anyone have any thoughts on good choices of trees for an exposed sight like this that would be fairly reliable and give us a good crop of firewood?

Thanks a lot!

Richard

I'm sure others who know more will give advise, but my first thoughts are that if there are ash trees already growing in the area I don't understand why more wouldn't survive.

As for the wet area - what about willow. It definitely grows up here and provides a fantastic windbreak, protecting your other trees. It might also help to dry out the area a bit. You can burn willow and use it for all sorts of other purposes.

What about some nut trees as well - hazel etc. I like things with more than one use - especially if one of them's eating

yep, agree with GA. We're on a fairly exposed wet site (v windy and not too far from the sea so different altitude to you but the gales are harsh) and i have ash, alder, rowan, birch, oak and gean all surviving. I think ash is a fairly slow growing wood. We've planted willow which I aim to crop for firewood - once it's established - takes about 4 yrs, you take a 1/4 off each plant each year. Willow and alder are both fast growing and you can coppice them - and pretty much most of the others.

Sitka are non native, fast growing soft wood - mostly used for the paper industry - I believe (don't quote me on that)

Happy planting

I wouldn't go for a conifer because once you've chopped it down that's it. However deciduous trees will mostly regrow, especially if you coppice, pollard or cut off side branches or just do what we do with some of our sycamores and employ a semi pollarding regime, i.e. cutting out some of the main branches from the tree's crown every year or so on youngish trees. I'm not sure about coppicing a mature tree though - I've read you can coppice oak but maybe that's best done with young trees as in my experience if you cut down a larger tree, although it will sprout for a year it will die after that.

I have a windy garden and the sycamores are really sturdy trees and extremely fast growing, self seed and can grow a branch (using my patented semi pollarding regime ) big enough for use as firewood in just 3 years. They're only about 3" diameter but you can leave branches for longer to get thicker and if you have enough trees you should have plenty whilst all the time the tree is renewing itself.

We've a similar size of place and type of soil in an exposed area too. I've found willow, beach, birch and rowan to be most successful. They also seem to be the most abundant naturally occurring species in the area too.

Floydster