Why Hazel Rewards the Coppice Worker

Hazel is the most obliging tree in the British wood. Leave it alone and it grows into a dense, many-stemmed thicket, shading out everything beneath it. Cut it hard to the ground in winter, though, and it responds with a burst of long, straight, whip-supple rods that can be cut again in seven or eight years. That is coppicing, and hazel does it better than almost anything else.

The secret is the stool — the swollen, knuckle-like base of the tree, packed with dormant buds. Each winter's cutting wakes a fresh set of them. A stool worked regularly can live for centuries, far outlasting the tree it might have become, and every year of cutting keeps it young. A neglected stool grows leggy and shaded, produces fewer usable rods, and eventually falls apart. Cutting is not an assault on the tree. It is what keeps it going.

When to Cut, and What to Look For

The window runs from leaf-fall in late October through to the end of February. Sap is down, growth is paused, and the wood is at its most durable. Cutting in spring or summer risks the stool, disturbs nesting birds, and leaves soft, sappy rods that shrink and split as they season. If you must work later, check carefully for active nests — all wild birds, their nests and eggs are protected while in use.

Stand in front of the stool and grade what is there before you touch it:

• Long, clean rods of 2.4 metres or more for beanpoles and pea sticks.
• Straight rods between 1.2 and 1.8 metres, roughly a finger to a thumb thick, for hurdle weavers and binders.
• Thicker stems, 25 to 40 millimetres across, straight and free of knots, for tool handles, besom brooms and thatching spars.
• Twiggy tops and crooked growth for brash, kindling and pea sticks — nothing is wasted.

The Cut That Keeps a Stool Sweet

Work with a sharp billhook or a pruning saw, and take the rods low. The aim is a clean, slightly angled cut a few millimetres above the old stool surface, so rainwater runs off the face rather than pooling in it. Cut upward with the billhook, using a controlled draw rather than a wild swing — a glancing blow bruises the stool and invites rot.

• Never leave snags more than a few centimetres long; they die back and rot into the heart of the stool.
• Never cut below soil level. It blunts your edge and lets in decay.
• Take the whole stool in one go, not a stem here and there, or the remaining rods will whip and shade the regrowth.
• Cut leaning rods on the side they lean toward, so the stem falls clear of the stool.

Tidy the stool afterwards by trimming any torn stubs, then stand back and let it be. With a little patience you can also layer a low-hanging rod into the soil to root, extending the wood sideways and filling gaps.

Beanpoles, Hurdles and Handles

The harvest sorts itself by size. The longest, straightest rods become beanpoles — trimmed of side shoots, pointed at the butt, and stacked flat. Slightly shorter rods become wattle hurdles, woven between split uprights on a simple jig. Hazel hurdles are light, handsome and last a decade or more outdoors with a dry spell between wet ones.

For handles, choose rods that are straight, knot-free and slightly oversized. Cut them a good 10 centimetres longer than you need: hazel shrinks as it dries, and a loose head is a dangerous one. Short offcuts, sawn and split, make fine tent pegs, dibbers and mallet heads. Thicker curved stems can be bent green into beckets and binders — simple loops of hazel used to tie bundles of rods together, a tidy and traditional way to carry your work home.

Seasoning and Storing the Cut

Stack rods in a dry, airy place, off the ground, laid flat or on a light criss-cross so air moves between them. Bundled tight and left damp, hazel will grow mould and go brittle. Bound with a hazel becket, a bundle of forty rods — a bolt in most parts of the country — is easy to carry and easy to count. Binders and hurdle weavers want to stay slightly green and flexible, so use them within a few weeks. Poles and handles need a year or two under cover before they are fit for hard use.

Cutting for the Wood, Not Just the Workshop

Coppicing is conservation when it is done on rotation. Divide the wood into blocks and cut one block a winter, so you always have a mosaic of ages: open, sunlit regrowth, mid-rotation thicket, and mature stands left to flower and set nuts. That structure suits dormice, nightingales, fritillaries and a long list of woodland plants that need light.

• Leave some stools uncut for longer so they bear hazelnuts for dormice, squirrels and jays.
• Pile brash at the edge of the cut as habitat for invertebrates, hedgehogs and wrens — never burn it wholesale.
• Keep a scatter of standing deadwood and a few standards, oak or ash, growing on above the hazel.
• Guard regrowth against deer and livestock with brash bundles or fencing until it is above browsing height.

Do it well, on a steady rotation, and your descendants will still be cutting beanpoles from the same stools. That, more than anything, is what sustainable woodland living looks like.