anyone own a beech woodland

[smojo]

Just wondering what are the pros and cons of a mainly beech canopy woodland. Seems they get very dark in summer and little light on the floor suppresses most shrubs and wild plants. On the other hand they are pretty clean and dry so walking through quite easy. Any comments welcome please.

[Wendelspanswick]

Our meadows are bordered by ancient Beeches, they certainly shade the ground underneath and the leaves accumulate in massive piles but I think they look majestic and give winter colour.
They are also renowned for dropping large limbs without warning, we are burning some as I write this!

[oldclaypaws]

Its a versatile timber for making stuff and excellent easily split firewood, only disadvantage I can think is that it tends to suffer squirrel damage, particularly to young trees. They like smooth barked trees like beech and sycamore. You do get nuts, and the young leaves are edible (if you can get to them). You could do worse. If its too dark, just thin out a few and fill in the gaps with young trees or coppice.

[Rankinswood]

The core of our Chilterns woodland contains many high beech now some 140 years old and these do indeed rather alarmingly shed branches during conditions of heavy rain, wind and snow. I have noted that a number of the larger beech trees and especially those growing on the sides of the woodland are gradually failing / falling as the strain imposed on the roots by leaning together with the larger than average canopy found on woodland edge trees takes its toll. This generally hapens in winter when the ground has been softened by rain.

Beech is probably a much under-rated timber which is stronger than oak and easy to work however because it is generally considered to be non durable / perishable its use in external applications is severely limited however I have come across timber-framed houses in The Berkshire Downs where it was employed as floor joists with some of these in service since 1475 sand so used sensibly maybe beech has a future.

Rankinswood

[Andy M]

The young leaves can be used to make "Noyaux" - the process is rather like making sloe gin.

[smojo]

Thanks for the replies. My target woodland has now been sold, just missed it but hey, I've learned something about beech.