Coppicing Hazel for Fuel

With Autumn’s cooler days just around the corner, I’ve been thinking for a while about our dogwood problem. It’s like a monster that we hack back every year, and it just grows like billio, threatening to invade the whole Smallest Smallholding with it’s annoyingly persistant runners. I don’t really want it here, the only reason that it’s stayed is that it gives us some privacy and also provides the birds with a glut of berries come Autumn. But it’s getting far too big and out of hand.

But as we have a multitude of pyracantha bushes all over the joint now, I think it’s time to start thinking about removing the dogwood. It’s just far too difficult to manage, too thuggish and not really that useful. So I was thinking perhaps I could replace it and make better use of the whole area it swamps (quite large, as nothing grows underneath it apart from it’s own runners and bindweed) with a coppicing area. I would like to grow hazel that I could regularly harvest, season and use for firewood. Given that it would be grown in an area with a lot of trees, a renewable resource, and it would heat the whole downstairs of the house from the fireplace, I think it’s a pretty environmentally-friendly sort of approach, don’t you?

But with futher reading, it seems like on such a small scale it might not be viable. This is because it could take 7/8 years for regrowth for any other than ‘faggots’ - smaller 2 metre bundles of hazel around 300-400mm thick and tied in three places. Faggots are used for things like fencing and riverbank erosion repair. But to me, they look like good kindling. I’m just not sure though. I suppose you could always shove it through the chipper and use the wood chips as fuel too? In fact, I suppose you could do this on a small scale with willow too. I have a feeling willow is much faster than hazel. Perhaps a mix of both? Worth looking into.

The other great thing about hazel coppices is that they’re brilliant for wildlife. The stumps from which the new growth grows is like a miniature wildlife habitat, with old wood, leaves and soil offering food and shelter.

The point is that I want something renewable and fairly fast growing that I can harvest year upon year. We need to reduce our central heating usage in the winter, given the rising costs and our responsibility as consumers. I’m going to make curtains this year for the winter to replace the blinds downstair, as our old sash windows are draughty and not very efficient. An open fireplace will actually draw in draughts, so I need to think of ways to maximise the energy output of our fireplace, especially if we’re to grow our own fuel.