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 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. 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.
On the West Coast of America, our access to hardwood is somewhat limited. However, there are a number of local hardwood trees that are particularly suitable for green woodworking practices: tan bark oak, maul oak, acacia, birch and willow. Also, some none native trees such as acacia work well. 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.