“Standing there, it’s the strangest thing because it looks and feels exactly like a proper natural woodland, except for the fact everything is disconcertingly young - and short!”

Clive Faulkner, MWT CEO, is talking about his reaction to seeing woodland he helped plant at Llandinam Gravels Nature Reserve a couple of decades ago. There, in an area of improved grassland at the site’s southern end, the gravelly soil of the river valley floor was too dry to establish wetland habitat, so the Trust instead decided to create a wood.

Doing things differently

Today, this tiny, 20-year woodland in miniature is incredibly special for a myriad of reasons.

First of all, it breaks the mould for traditional conservation tree planting, which tends to be done in straight lines with even spacing, in part because of the forestry influence at play, and in part because doing so makes it possible to issue simple instructions for contractors to follow. Clive, exasperated by this regimented, artificial approach, wanted to do things differently at Llandinam Gravels and take inspiration from nature, planting appropriate species according to location, soil depth and moisture, as well as grouping plantings as they would occur naturally – that is, much more haphazardly.

“Six Trust staff, including myself, went down to the reserve and planted a mixture of native trees: Black Poplar, willow, oak, birch, alder, blackthorn and hawthorn. We identified the areas that were a little higher - and therefore drier - and planted the oaks there, then planted the willows a little lower down where it was wetter, then planted the Black Poplars by the river,” Clive explains. “There is no ecological sense in planting in straight rows.”

Spacing out

Also to echo what occurs naturally, they planted some trees close to each other and others much further away, as well as intentionally leaving clearings [small areas where they are no trees or bushes], because they feature in natural woodlands too.

Not only does this naturalistic spacing result in a natural-feeling woodland, it also has benefits for the trees themselves and for biodiversity. Trees growing closer together will often have a more upright form and compete with each other for resources like water, sunlight and nutrients, sometimes resulting in smaller or shorter trees, while wider spacing encourages a more open tree canopy and there is less competition for resources. Variety in spacing promotes diversity of structure which in turn benefits a greater number of different plants, fungi and animals.

“I couldn’t have imagined just now well it would work,” reflects Clive.

The choice of trees – and one species in particular – also makes this woodland very special.

Back to black

“We planted a huge number of Black Poplars – in fact we believe it’s the largest collection of native Black Poplars of known genetic origin in Wales,” explains Clive.

Once as commonplace in the UK as the oak or ash, the Black Poplar is now our rarest and most threatened native tree. This is because its favoured natural habitat is fertile river floodplains, very sought-after areas for agriculture and development.

Together with Alder, Black Poplar form a special type of woodland that only grows on river floodplains – something you can still see in parts of Europe, but that is all but extinct from the UK.

Whilst many trees produce male and female flowers on the same plant, Black Poplar are either male or female, and need to be within 200 metres of each other in order to reproduce. Female Black Poplar are rarer than males, but we were able to plant both at Llandinam Gravels, making it a breeding population, something which is vital to safeguard the tree’s future, along with the animals it supports, such as the Poplar Hawk-moth.

“We’ve put them back on the river floodplain where they belong in great numbers as a Black Poplar genetic bank,” says Clive. “It provides a resource that people can use to take cuttings or, in time, seeds.”

A river runs through it

This woodland is one piece of the puzzle that is the Trust’s ultimate vision for this riverine nature reserve.

“At Llandinam Gravels, there’s a rare opportunity to let a river truly run wild,” says Clive. “Most of the time, these waterways are constrained by roads, houses, mains water pipes, electricity cables and other infrastructure connected with modern human society. But because this stretch of the Severn is in a nature reserve – like at Dolydd Hafren too – the river has the chance to express itself, to be romantic about it.”

Where the wild things are

“What I’d like to see is for the river to behaviour naturally, and generate all the beautiful braided channels a river in that location should,” he adds. “If you let a river make all the intricate structures it naturally wants to, everything has a home! And some of those animals are really special, such as breeding Atlantic Salmon in the water and Redshank, Oystercatcher and Little Ringed Plover on the gravel banks.”

Not only will the tree-planting and the braiding of the river channels benefit wildlife and biodiversity, they are also bonafide nature-based solutions to prevent flooding, helping protect the nature reserve itself and the local community from the increasingly common effects of climate change.

• To find out more about Llandinam Gravels or to plan your visit, see: www.montwt.co.uk/nature-reserves/llandinam-gravels