Woodland Custodianship

[TLM]

At the moment I am fighting aspen trying to totally cover about a hectar.

 

[Broch]

Yeh, it can sucker very quickly. From a woodland resilience point of view it would be better to have a wider genetic pool than we have with the few trees here. I don't really want to buy in from too far afield so I'm trying to organise an Aspen sapling swap club

 

[TLM]

Part of my problem seems to be the kind of aspens I have at that spot, they are crosses between European and North American ones, they grow very fast when young but tend to grow a few big weak branches that break off almost on their own. So they were not a big success. But they seem to be awfully efficient at spreading at one point in their life, more so than the local variety.

 

[FerlasDave]

to get decent genetic variation one has to introduce Aspen from elsewhere

That must be really conflicting considering your “hands off” reintroduction plan. Are you reconsidering this or are there other possible options for you? Or, are you just accepting that if it doesn’t work then something else will come along?