GREEN WOODWORK & WOODLAND CRAFTS
Sustainable woodworking practices stretch back many thousands of years: the qualities of each tree, the fruit, and the wood it produces have been extensively observed and are intimately understood. Mankind has always relied on the woodlands to provide firewood for heating, fruit, nuts and seeds for eating, and wood for making shelters, and tools. The long-term care for the woodlands and forests is a fundamental practice that has been passed from one generation to the next and is known as "green woodworking". It is a stewardship of a natural resource that extends its reach many hundreds of years into the future, and has a lineage that stretches back many thousands of years.
The term "green woodwork" is a modern description of a sustainable method of harvesting and working wood that goes back many thousands of years. Working freshly cut or "green" logs usually where they are felled (or close by), using handtools such as an axes, froe, and saw. Once split and roughly trimmed the lumber is then further worked using simple tools such as a shave horse (a foot-operated clamping device) and sometimes a bow or pole lathe (proably man's earliest woodworking machine).
The trees used in such woodwork need to have certain characteristics: usually straight grained, with minimal knots or other features. These trees can be found in areas of dense woodland where there is alot of competition with other trees and hence they grow straight and have few branches. So-called "coppicing" and pollarding are methods by which trees can be grown which promotes this type of growth, and allows the woodland to fluorish with regular "thinning out" of usable wood. The coppicing process has been carried out in some parts of the world for many thousands of years. In Britain, there are oak trees that are 500-600 years old that have been pollarded or coppiced for most of their life. Contrary to popular thought, the trees tend to live much longer, sometimes exceeding 3-4 times their normal life span, as the cutting back process seems to "reset" their time clock. Traditional coppice grown trees include the hardwoods hazel, willow, birch, beech, chestnut, elm, and oak. Trees are grown side by side, with the faster growing trees being harvested between 1 and 20 years cycles, and the slower growing trees (such as oak and elm) being harvested every 10-100 years! Coppicing is believed to be the earliest form of sustainable harvesting of woodlands: it was an established practice well before the rise of the Roman Empire.
On the West Coast of America, our access to hardwood is more limited than in other parts of the world. However, there are a number of local hardwood trees that are particularly suitable for green woodworking practices: tan bark oak, acacia, birch, bay laurel, walnut and willow. Apart from acacia, these are all native species. Softwoods we have in abundance: straight, fast-growing, "leggy" redwood, cedar, pine and fir all work well but are not as strong as the hardwoods. They do make excellent garden furmiture.
