lowerforest

David - I haven't discussed the future management plans for the roundels in any detail - I'm just waiting to see them prepared and planted up before asking any more questions! To be honest, my personal preference would be for the trees to remain as park oaks, although I can easily see the argument for managing them as pollards, especially in the 'heritage' sense. Maybe it will be possible to do two types of planting - roundels/park oaks for landmark plantations, and compartment/pollard plantations to demonstrate and preserve the art, management and history of oak pollarding? Sean - thanks for the comments also, Tony - your 10 trees are doing just fine, and I'll be in touch very soon to arrange their delivery/collection.

After nearly two years, my little collection of oak seedlings have reached the point in their lives where a 7-inch pot is no longer appropriate for their continued development. If they are to make it as mature forest trees, they need to really start spreading their root systems into good quality open soil, and get those branches reaching for the sky. as per my original intentions to give these trees back to Crown Estate, I contacted the Head Forester with a view to discussing plans for their future. He was delighted to be offered the trees, and arrangements were made for their collection and transfer to a managed nursery located in the grounds of Frogmore, next to the House. I was given a guided tour of the nursery, and was delighted to see that my trees would be joining others sourced and grown on from the same tree, which had also been collected during the spectacular acorn season of 2011. Of the greatest interest to me was the sight of a large plot of land which was fully planted up with standard oaks (in the 3-6ft stage), all being grown on for future plantings in and around the Great Park. I was informed that it is the intention of the two nurserymen at Frogmore to separately plant out all of the oaks grown from the seeds collected from Offa's Oak (including my own trees) and grow them on to standard size, after which they are to be used for 'heritage' planting schemes, based on their genetic inheritance from the oldest oak at Windsor, if not in the country. I was informed by the Head Forester that one of the ideas they were looking at was to use these special trees to create 'roundels' of c25-50 specimens, with the important caveat that all trees would be planted in their final and permanent positions, at nominal 25metre spacings. This vital step is to maximise the end-result of the planting by removing the need to thin out any of the planted trees at any future stage in their hopefully-long lives. This is exactly the concept I had hoped for myself, and so to hear this was music to my ears! and so, preparations for the departure of my oaks were made: all pots de-weeded, top dressing of bonemeal, a good watering, a few photos, and hopefully no tears when they are taken away! My wife, Dawn, gave the oaks their last preparations at our home in Staines - I have to say she's been wholly supportive of this project, despite having to spend an inordinate amount of time helping me with their care during the last 22 months, not to mention the loss of our driveway and her carport, the dirty hands and chipped fingernails, the slugs and snails, toads, cat and fox poo ... - she's been a diamond! Crown Estate sent a vehicle and long trailer to collect the trees a few days ago, and we were able to provide them with exactly 300 healthy specimens to take away to their new home, and their future lives. I have to say, its been a project which began as a fun, but important, project. Offa's Oak has not produced a batch of acorns such as this in living memory, and so it was important not to waste the opportunity presented to us. My Dad was wholly involved with it from day 1, from collecting the acorns to planting hundreds of them in Ted Green's trial nursery at Cranbourne. We talked a lot about plans and hopes for these trees, and how great it would be to see something permanent (and memorable) done with them. Whilst the oaks project was progressing, we were having to deal with the difficult issue of two family members battling cancer. One was my dad himself, and the other was Dawn's mum. Within the space of 9 days at the end of April 2013, we lost them both. When I had my meeting with the Head Forester at the Windsor Estate Office, I made a request. It was one that I had intended anyway, but took on a far greater significance following Dad's passing. I suggested that, for a theme, the newly-planted roundels be named after previous Foresters of the Windsor Estate, and that one of the roundels be named after my Dad. The Head Forester indicated he thought it was a good idea, and he would now pass it onto the Deputy Ranger, with whom the final decision will rest. so it's fingers crossed, and I hope I get to see 'Fielder's Copse' in its full glory in the years to come. As a memorial to a man for whom the forests of Windsor and the Great Park was his whole life, it would be the most fitting, and lasting, of tributes. rest in peace, Pops.

update - meeting with Head Forester, Windsor on 19July to discuss plans for the use/future of the oak seedlings. They are still doing very well, despite the hot weather, and the HF has indicated he would be pleased to take them all for use in planting projects within the Windsor Estate, to be added to those they already have. I'm certainly looking forward to hearing about the Estate projects - and if allowed, I'll update again with a few details. Tony - don't worry, I haven't forgotten your request! I have reserved a batch of nice plants for your own project - keep an eye on your PMs for further info. PS - just checked those pots which had failed to produce a seedling after 15 months, only to find 6 new seedlings which have emerged since !

it's always fun/interesting to look at these historical images and attempt to see if they genuinely portray a view, a scene or an item of interest which actually existed - ie, are they accurate! this particular William Frith painting is a perfect example of this. There's historical evidence that Henry (and Ann, most probably) spent many hours hunting in the Forest at Windsor, but the painting shows the castle as it was post-1827 - perhaps we're looking at the ghosts of Ann and Bluff King Hal !! (and where the hell's Herne the Hunter when you need him??!)

Tony - yes i'd be happy to supply you with some more. I have vacation abroad starting early next week, but back home around 23june, so if you're ok to wait until then, we'll get something sorted on my return.

re the brown oak - I will have a look, and a quick chat to the staff when I'm next in the woodyard. I saw your work at Savill, btw - very nice. Tony - i'll be very interested to see how your plants progress using your personal 'techniques'. Compared to how I'm doing it, (ie - the very basic way haha!) I would hopefully expect to see some positive differences in overall growth in two years, resistance to mildew etc, and maybe I can glean a few tips for my next venture into growing another batch of saplings from the same source - assuming that the acorns are forthcoming once more. (20+ years is a looooong time to wait!)

just a quick update for anybody following this thread. I've managed to help bring most of my 'oaklings' through the awful weather of late 2012-early 2013, and from 343 saplings, the tally is now 327 trees growing away successfully in the pots. There was a one-off loss of about 10 pots in a day due to the predation of two grey squirrels which happened to find them. Needless to say, the squirrel problem was quickly (and humanely) dealt with once I saw what was going on! There's a surprising amount of 'difference' in the surviving examples, from height (varies between 3" and 14") basic leaf pattern and colour, and form; the majority are single stem, with a sprinkling of doubles, and a few multi-stems which have sprung from a single acorn. One particular example is a strong growing single-stem which has an evenly spread 3-way 'mini-crown' - and in my mind's eye, I can already see this tree as a wide spreading, mature Oak in 500 years time - perfect! All the pots have been de-weeded, then topped-up with a mix of topsoil, humus and a very light feed of bonemeal. Assuming no further calamities, I shall leave them like this until late Autumn and then offer them to the Crown Estate. If they're not interested, then it will be 'open house' to anybody who can offer any/all of them a suitable permanent home. BTW, Tony - if you need any top-ups for your own project, please let me know and I'll keep a few aside for you. On my last visit to Cranbourne, I noticed that Ted G's nursery project has been revamped, and with the addition of some new saplings lined out, is now looking much more encouraging. The more the merrier, as far as I'm concerned!

MS460 - would definitely buy another.

I have genuinely lost count of the number of times i've made work decisions based on the BBC weather info, only to regret it in short order. They would have trouble forecasting what time breakfast might be tomorrow.

east berkshire, let me know if you're intending to be up towards London at any time. hands full at the moment with domestic issues but may be able to arrange something. fuelwoods up in Warwickshire supplied our machine, and they are more than happy to wheel one out and let you have a go if you're interested in buying - thats what we did.

NFFC - only had this machine since June2011, so havent done a full year with it. We're a small operation, not full-time, but when we do some splitting, in a day we split enough beech and oak rings into logs to fill just under four Nissan Cabstar tipper truckloads (each truckload can fill just under 3 Wickes-style bulk bags). We have found that having a purpose-built table standing on the opposite side of the splitter head/operator helps to catch pieces of the bigger split rings that would otherwise fall to the floor. As when using any form of processing machinery, you have to play around with layout, location, stacking of ringed wood etc to get the maximum efficiency out of the day's work. cant fault the machine, though, as far as splitting goes - starts every time, good on fuel, not too noisy, and we havent offered it a ring it couldn't split (yet!) Need to keep the brass sliding plates either side of the ram well greased - they do wear out, and not that cheap to replace. Would buy another multipla if we felt the need to expand our operation.

woodline 10T multipla/honda engine does the job really well, although TCD is correct about bigger rings falling off once split. Dont bother with the 4-way splitter head; 2-way is far more efficient. Only gripe is that, for 1 person, the machine is heavy and awkward to manouever on anything other than hard, level surfaces due to small solid wheels and hard-to-find centre of balance. Needs 2 people to move it easily.

you're welcome, Tinker - would be nice to see a picture of the completed project sometime - complete with helicopter landing safely!

I spent the day at Windsor Great Park trying to cut a clearway to my parents house next to Offa's Oak (as its now called). 1300 years old, propped with wooden poles, and yet it stood whilst other younger and more vigorous trees nearby fell. The scene across the Park was one of catastrophe, with so many veteran trees blown over, not to mention entire modern plantations of conifers, which tumbled like dominoes in a rowdy pub table game. Go there today, and you'd never know it had happened ....