If you owned a piece of woodland, how would you use it?

[AintNobodyHereButUsChickens]

I’ve fantasised for years about owning woodland. I’ll likely never be in the position to actually do it but hey I can daydream, right? I’d walk in it, have a nice seating area to just sit, watch and listen. And I’d like a treehouse. Probably not in an actual tree, but more like a cabin on stilts or something.

I'd fill it with chickens ..and a picnic table set for me.

My friend has one. It’s hard work! Squirrels and deers eat saplings….. try to cull them and a whole world of trouble opens up.

Hey don’t spoil my daydream 🤣

No need to kill wildlife saplings can be protected

It would feel like a big responsibility- I have a friend who has trained in forestry so I would pay her to advise me on the lightest touch management for local species of flora and wildlife. I agree it would be brilliant to have like a birdwatching hide that was comfortable enough to stay overnight in, but I wonder if that would mean you’d need more security and bigger fences. I’d want a way of monitoring it for morons using it for fly tipping.

Metal detect it. I love the detectorists. Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook would be welcome to come treasure hunting.

Sorry! :)

This kind of debate opened up for my friend. I like a squirrel as much as the next person but…..

it’s costing her many thousands because you can’t leave a squirrel to die slowly in a legal trap and she can’t find the casual labour to manage the sheaths that go on the saplings….

imagine school playground tensions and that’s what she’s bought!

I think with a mature woodland it’s different - but I bet that’s hard too! Trees fall, you are responsible for safety, you want to keep the dead wood for owls etc.

better have a big garden next to woodland :)

I'd make it into a woodland sculpture park. For me and my family/friends only, no riff-raff allowed!

I do own a (very small) piece of woodland at the end of our garden nd the disappointing truth is we do nothing with it!

We've had some dead and diseased trees removed and some of the bracken and undergrowth cut back over the years, but we leave it as it is mostly as there are foxes and badgers living there and the occassional muntjac deer has wandered in. Nature is always trying to reclaim it as a wild space!

It's nice to sit and watch the birds and wildlife from the house though.

Does it have water? I would have a couple of beavers. It would need to be a massive wood though as they'd totally change the environment. I'd also have some pigs. They are fun to keep, but can be destructive, they need space and enrichment. I'd also have a little cabin to stay in.

Great minds, but not woodland but an old allotment area. This is my lottery dream.Its in the middle of our rural market town, run wild as its not used for allotments any more. Limited vehicular access so no good for housing. Id make it a semi private urban wildlife refuge. Lots of self seeded native plants already, but wildflowers too. Id put up a big hedge to stop the neighbourhood oiks getting in. Nice pond in the middle. Plant native trees. A gate to which I control access to.(see oiks). Employ someone who knows about wildlife gardening and set up a mentorship scheme to encourage local schools and colleges to train up students and run to support the new Wildlife GCSE. I'd let my friends have access and local care homes so residents can come and sit in peace. But as a lottery win isnt in my future it ain't happening.

I’d open it for free for the village, for picnics and walks and children making dens and climbing trees (I’m pretending I won’t get sued when someone gets injured). Dogs will be banned.

I walk past a private wood regularly, with its “Keep Out” sign on the gate, and this is what I daydream about if I owned it.

I had an ad for woodland pop up on a social media platform recently, so I went internet window shopping and made plans!

I'd have a tent and fire circle to hang out in. A wood store. A tarp shelter by the fire in case of rain. Flat spaces for visitor's tents.

I'd put some beehives on it. There are some in (private) woods near us. We have three beehives in our garden, which makes that part of the garden a bit of a no-go area. But it's good to see the bees clustered round the entrances and to think we've provided a home for all those little souls.
DS does take a bit of honey once a year, but not much. Apparently, commercial beekeepers replace the honey with something called fondant, which is basically sugar, and that's what the baby bees are fed on! So ours are pretty much left to it (just treated for mites if necessary). DS went on a course to learn about beekeeping after a swarm came into our garden and we bought a hive. So it's doable!

Set up a forest school for SEN kids.

We had one, but it was hard work keeping it clear of debris (fallen branches) and dealing with dead and blown over trees. Storm Arwen badly affected ours and we didn't have the energy to clear up as we're getting older now. You also have to be careful of not camping near trees that are at risk of blowing over in high winds or storms. Other than that, it was nice.

I REALLY want a little bit of woodland. Big enough so that you can't see the edges from the middle. With beech trees, and holly trees, and a little stream. With bluebells, and wood anemone, and bilberries at the edge where there is more light.

In fact just like the wood that was in the area next to the school I went to 50 years ago.