Planting or Not Planting Woodland

A little while ago I was involved in a great nonsense about wildflower seeds. Plantlife, the wildflower charity, essentially said all wildflower seed mixes were cr@p and should be avoided. OK, perhaps it was a slightly more nuanced message, but you get the gist. The idea underlying this was to get people to be more aware of their local botany, and that trying to replace lost wildflower areas could be done more sensitively and cheaply in some instances by using locally sourced seed. This is a message I'm enormously sympathetic to, and which we actually do our best to promote ourselves. What I wasn't at all sympathetic to is having the seed we sell - including seed with specific provenance - lumped in with the rubbish that the unwary can buy. It's hard enough for responsible producers without this kind of misinformation. Blow me down if a similar thing hasn't just happened with native trees. You can buy native species trees and shrubs as "whips" - these are small plants, usually graded between 40-60cm or 60-90cm. They're used either for hedges or for woodland planting schemes. People like the Woodland Trust have done a huge number of schemes using them. This kind of new planting is usually blighted by plastic spiral guards or larger tubular guards for trees. Unless the new plants are fenced off these guards are vital. We have so many deer running around the countryside now we would lose most of our new planting schemes to them if they weren't protected. The guards are often not removed, however, and just photodegrade - i.e. get brittle and just break into smaller and smaller pieces. The industry has failed miserably to come up with a biodegradable alternative, which does my head in. There are other issues too. Species selection can be wrong for the site. The species mix might be inappropriate. Plants might be imported, so bringing the risk of disease or non-native variation. Planting densities might stop the development of a healthy understorey. And, of course, natural regeneration is much cheaper. In short - despite the fact we sell the plants! - I'm very sympathetic to the "rewilding" view that in some instances the best way to reforest areas is not to plant them, but to let them naturally regenerate. Thorny scrub can protect emerging broadleaf trees, which means no guards. The new woodland self selects. The understorey develops entirely naturally. Let's not, however, exaggerate the evils of whips, which suddenly seems the thing to do. Without knowing enough about the ecological arguments, I understand that this way of establishing woodland might not work all the time. I can think of lots of instances when it wouldn't work for practical reasons either. Many whips ARE imported. Many aren't, however, and are painstakingly grown from seed in British nurseries - so there's no biosecurity risk. Rather than not using them at all, customers should be informed about their provenance. Planting schemes using good quality whips usually establish very well. If grass is kept clear from the base of the plants, they're planted correctly and don't get whacked by deer, we only usually see around 5% failures. It seems daft that in order to promote one's own agenda, alternatives have to be demonised. Planters and regenerators, both sides want the same thing - more of the right kind of woodland in the landscape.