What happened at Monks Wood

Sixty years ago, the last crop of barley was harvested from a four-hectare field in Cambridgeshire. The field was closed off to humans and Nature was left to deal with it. Monks Wood Wilderness has been a long-term experiment in re-wilding, to observe what would happen to arable land once man stopped cultivating it. The result - a forest with a tall canopy. It didn't happen quickly. At first, brambles and thorns, low shrubs dominated, but then trees (mainly oaks), seeded by birds and squirrels, began to take over. As the trees grew taller, their leaf canopy blocked sunlight from falling on the ground, the grasses, bushes and shrubs died off.

"The result is a structurally complex woodland with multiple layers of tree and shrub vegetation, and accumulating deadwood as the habitat ages. This complexity offers niches for a wide variety of woodland wildlife, from fungi and invertebrates in the dead logs and branches, to song thrushes, garden warblers and nuthatches which nest in the ground layer, understorey and tree canopy."

Next door to my działka is a 4,000m2 (one acre) patch of land that, according to the neighbour on the other side, has not seen any human presence since he was a child, 45 years ago. The land - whatever it was before - is now native forest, its floor bereft of the rich meadowland plantlife next door on my działka, meadowland full of flowers and wild grasses, brambles, berries and some fruit trees. The forest is bounded by an overgrown zone about 10m deep to the south, about 5m to the east and west and slightly less to the north. This is where the sunlight does reach the ground unhindered; the resulting spiky thickets make it hard for humans to intrude into the forest. But once inside, the floor is remarkably clear of grass, shrubs or bushes - it's leaf-mulch and pine needles, mushrooms (sadly inedible) and molehills. Trees topple and rot. Common aspen (Populus tremens, in Polish osika) is the predominant tree, with oak and pine growing around the fringes of the wood. The aspen is a brittle tree, liable to snap when bent by strong winds. Below: looking north, the evening sun streaming through the trees.

Below: looking west towards my działka, the low shrubs marking the border zone, beyond which my fence.

Meanwhile, on my działka, an oak sapling that I'd observed last year sprouting out of what had once been a neatly-kept lawn, is growing, albeit with powdery mildew affecting its upper leaves, and oak apples (galls) on a lower leaf. The mildew, says Wikipedia, can be dealt with by spraying with triadimefon, propiconazole, hexaconazole, myclobutanil or penconazole. Mowy nie ma! A better remedy is spraying with milk, diluted with water ten to one.

Doing my bit - these two oak seedlings were still in jars four days ago have now been 'released into their habitat' - I wish them a long future, untroubled by pests or disease, and many acorns.

Just over 30% of the land surface of Poland is covered with forest (the UK is a mere 13%, of which half is native woodland, the rest is commercial forestry). The EU average is 38%, pulled up by Finland (73%) and Sweden (68%). Our planet needs more trees; I'm doing my bit to encourage them to grow on my land, and hope that the forest next door remains untouched.

Woodland is one issue, another is hedgerows, a very English institution, not something seen so often in Poland. The UK is also encouraging the replanting of hedgerow, half of which have disappeared since 1945; maybe Polish farmers could follow this example, and grow some! Historian Adam Zamoyski once said that his great-grandfather, to please his children's English governess, homesick for her native Kent, ordered the planting of hedgerows across Zamojszczyzna to make her feel more at home. A good move.

This time two years ago:
Loss, faith and consolation

This time four years ago:
Summer's wasting away

This time five years ago:
Warsaw remembers the PASTa building capture

This time six years ago:
Drought. It was a dry summer.

This time eight years ago:
Warsaw's ski slope at Szczęśliwice

This time nine years ago:
On the road from Dobra, again

This time ten years ago:
August storm, ul. Targowa

This time 11 years ago:
Warsaw Central's secret underground kebab factory

This time 12 years ago:
Cheap holidays in other people's misery

This time 13 years ago:
Steam welcomes us to Dobra

This time 14 years ago:
New houses appear in the fields by Zgorzała