PRODUCTS OF SILVACULTURE
This experimental collection fuses ancient ways of working wood with a contemporary aesthetic. Originally designed and made as a design-led use for a very traditional material, Products of Silvaculture has gone on to become a pivotal part of everything we do.
Certain pieces have evolved to take their place in our current collections (particularly Underwood) and others are often used as the starting point for unusual and unique bespoke commissions. These pieces showcase the ambitious and ethical origins of the Sebastian Cox workshop, studio and mill.
HOW COPPICING WORKS
Coppicing is an ancient method of woodland management and is effectively pruning at ground level. It is a process which encourages fast tree regrowth, producing a completely renewable source of material while simultaneously boosting biodiversity.
As well as providing a renewable and self-replenishing source of fast grown wood, coppicing generates biodiversity.
Coppicing, or the cutting of trees, floods the woodland floor with light. This allows an abundance of wild flowers to grow, which in turn attract insects, which attract birds, and so on. This creation of meadow land within a wood (for a short period) means there is space for wildlife to feed and breed near to their nests or shelter. As this cleared area re-grows, when the coppiced stool develops, your next harvest will open up another clearing adjacent to it, creating a chain of space for the wildlife now supported by the woodland.
If you have a 12 year rotation, and divide the wood into 12 small plots (or coupes), not only will you have a perpetual source of wood you will also maintain strong biodiversity within the woodland. It’s one of a few examples of where man’s intervention actually encourages wildlife.
Unfortunately, the process of coppicing is now more often done for biodiversity rather than for the material it yields, which makes it an oft forgotten and underestimated process. Our furniture seeks to change this and make coppicing more commercially viable, so that more of our neglected woodlands can be managed.
Coppiced trees tend to have many stems, rather than a single trunk. Cutting takes place in winter, traditionally by axe or billhook.
The tree is cut close to the ground and at an angle, leaving as neat a stool as possible. By the spring, new shoots will burst from the stool.
The new shoots quickly become nimble young rods. These grow rapidly, producing an abundance of fast grown, straight wood.
These young rods will develop quickly into ever taller, thicker rods. Typically, after 5 - 12 years the tree will be ready for harvesting again.