This multi-layered high woodland type is only possible on soils with good water and nutrient conditions. To some extent you can, however, compensate for somewhat poorer conditions by a vague opening of the high canopy, and by artificial watering during drought periods. However, there are questions about long-term viability if these woodlands are unmanaged: in practice, a well developed, many layered structure like this is rather unusual—it normally does not exist by natural processes but is instead a combination of historical, multi-functional and complex management methods, as stages within ‘lund’ management, and management of wooded meadows or as the later stages of an overgrown coppice with standard systems. A knowledge-based management system which focuses on the selection of main trees, neighbour trees, the development of a multilayered structure in-between, the combination of strict individual and group treatment, and a utilisation of spontaneous processes is therefore important.
Low woodland types (low stands)
Basic characteristics
Low woodland types with multi-stemmed trees and high shrubs, with a possibility to enter physically, even if in the younger stages this may be difficult due to its density. Many have suggested that traditional coppice systems should be used in city situations much more. In these systems the traditional management never enables anything resembling a high woodland type to develop. However, after a period of no management they stop their development as low woodlands, with or without standard trees emerging here and there. Coppicing, which uses the spontaneous re-growth of the species, is arranged on a rotation cycle, sometimes on short cycles of six to eight years or less, or on longer cycles up to 20-30 years. This gives a dense mass of multi-stemmed individuals that have many similarities with high shrubs—it is a collective, anonymous and dense mass, that is higher than a shrub. They become almost impossible to enter and have almost no visual openness, if planted densely. However, if we include the longer intervals and wider spacings or also include the ‘overgrown’ or ‘left’ stages, then, suddenly, physically and visually more open types are found. These latter, totally new types, but based on similar principles and also on some of the traditional principles, should all be considered as important for the future.
