Four Seasons in a Plantation
A working forest has a calendar, and almost none of it is written down.
Winter
Planting season, and harvesting where the ground will carry it. Broadleaves go in bare-rooted while they are dormant, and the whole business is decided by frost, rain and how much water the site is holding.
Everything in a forest is waiting for the right week.
Spring
Growth starts and work slows. Nesting begins, so operations are pulled back from sensitive areas. It is a season for walking the ground, checking survival in last year's planting and beating up the gaps where seedlings failed.
Summer
Vegetation management: keeping grass and bramble off young trees so they are not smothered in their first summers. Long evenings, tall growth, and the constant low anxiety of dry weather.
Autumn
Seed collection, inventory and planning. The year's measurements are taken, the maps are updated, and next winter's work is decided while the leaves are still coming down.
The same wood, four times over, and never quite the same twice.
