Our beech woods are lovely and are one of the habitats that makes Childwall Woods special. But it is also true that beech is a very dominant species that tends to suppress the understorey vegetation growing beneath.
The CWF reserve is full of naturally regenerating beech saplings – both on the Black Woods and Childwall Woods sites. We welcome this regeneration but you can have too much of a good thing.
The site was declared a nature reserve in 2004 to in order to preserve its biodiversity which comes from the variety of habitats it contains.
A Liverpool City Council management plan for CWF called for selective thinning of the woodland to allow for greater species diversity and stated that without active intervention, the woodland would become moribund. Selective thinning and planting of the overly wooded understory are needed to help ground vegetation to prosper. Over 100 native trees were planted in 2022 within the beech woods, and 300 hedge trees were planted early in 2024 elsewhere on the site.
In some areas of the reserve the beech saplings are very dense and to thin some of the dense beech saplings in one area of the beechwood was the work done by 18 volunteers today. The refreshments afterwards were much appreciated.
Our aim remains to preserve the ‘mosaic of different habitats’ that makes CWF special. This will never be a ‘hands off’ process, but our aim is always to work with the minimum intervention that is appropriate.