Here at CherryValley Estate, we have plans to increase our wooded areas to help with bio-diversity and carbon sequestration for future generations.
Native species and traditional orchards are being planted. Ancient Woodland has developed over thousands of years to become a habitat rich in species diversity. Badgers, squirrels, owls and woodpeckers are some of the first animals that might spring to mind when you think of woodland wildlife, but there are so many more.
Think of the trees for a start. Each has its own cloak of life in it, on it, under it and flying around it. Mature willows and oaks can support over 400 types of insects and mites. Each species of plant has its own company of creatures, and there are many growing in an ancient woodland. Beneath the top canopy of the tall oak, ash, holly and cherry you have the understudy of wood, such as hazel, goat willow, hawthorn, elder and spindle, mixed with masses of climbers like ivy, bramble and honeysuckle.
The ground flora below includes ferns, mosses, liverworts, bluebells, wood anemone, wood sorrel, found. lower still, mosses and liverworts enjoy the humidity of the sheltered woodland environment.
Autumn is perhaps the best time to spot mushrooms and all sorts of fungal fruiting bodies in a wood. Weird spore-making structures explode out of every surface, They emerge to send microscopic copies of themselves around the world’s air currents.
Some of those have curious common names; Dryad’s Saddle, Orange Peel Fungus, Chicken of the Woods, Earthstar, Candlesnuff.
When you start to appreciate the vital role fungus takes in plant root partnerships, you’ve got to love the old rotters. Add to that, the recycling achieved by fungi – an unimaginably huge task of turning fibres into food and returning the nutrients to the woodland ecosystem. Fungi make wood digestible to many a minibeast. The largest living things on Planet Earth are fungal networks who cover vast tracts of woodland and link into the very pulse of the forest.
