Last Tuesday evening saw the first in a series of events organized by muswellhillgardeners.co.uk in association with Haringey Libraries. This evening talk by Rebecca Harrison at Alexandra Park Library in front of a select audience was titled Highgate Woods Management and how it fits into your Garden.

Rebecca, a Wood Keeper for the City of London in Highgate Woods, started her presentation describing her transition from a “stiletto heeled” office worker into a chainsaw wielding arboriculturist with additional qualifications in conservation, courtesy of Capel Manor and Birkbeck College, over the previous 11 years. She then introduced Highgate Wood, its history and the reasons why it is owned and managed by the City of London.

This was then followed by a description of how the maintenance of the wood had changed since the Great Storm of 1987 with light allowed in by the removal of much of the canopy allowing regeneration of the woodland floor changing it from a leaf layer and canopy to a multi-tiered environment. Dead wood rather than being burnt, was retained to provide optimum environments for insects and other invertebrates as well as birds and small mammals. Rebecca also told anecdotes about the wildlife found in the woods and amused the audience with tales of barn owl chicks, sparrowhawks and even one eyed hedgehogs. The management of the wood now involves the setting up of conservation areas which are isolated for a period of 10 years and includes the planting of what will eventually become hedgerows to control the access to parts of the woods.

The final part of the presentation involved taking the lessons learnt in the management of Highgate Woods and applying them to your own domestic gardens. This involved trying to include multi-tier planting with an upper story of trees or large shrubs, a middle story of shrubs and a low story of garden plants. Rebecca stressed the need to maximise the duration of nectar bearing flowers, starting in February to provide food for butterflies, bumblebees and honey bees, the need for berry bearing plants to provide food for birds in the autumn and winter and above all a source of fresh water such as a pond.