Why raise a new stool from cuttings?

Coppicing depends on stools — the swollen, long-lived bases of trees that throw up fresh rods each time they are cut. A good stool can live for centuries, and every rod you take from it is a clone of the parent. That is why hardwood cuttings are the cheapest and most reliable way to extend an existing coppice, fill a gap in a hedge line, or start a new one on a bare patch of ground. There is no nursery bill, no plastic pot, no transplant shock, and no waiting for grafted stock to settle.

It works best with the species that coppice naturally and root readily from wood: willow, hazel, poplar, alder, field maple, dogwood, lime and sweet chestnut. Ash will root, but it is best avoided while dieback is still working through the countryside.

Choosing wood and taking the cuttings

Take hardwood cuttings between late November and early March, when the tree is fully dormant. Avoid working in hard frost, when the wood is brittle and the ground is locked up. Choose a vigorous parent — one with long, clean, healthy growth from the past season. Never take more than a quarter of a stool's rods, and never take from a tree you suspect of disease.

• Use last season's growth at about pencil thickness. Thicker wood roots poorly; thin whips dry out before they strike.
• Cut each piece 20–30cm long, with at least three good buds.
• Make a flat cut at the base, just below a bud, and a slanting cut at the top, just above a bud. The slant sheds rain, and the two different cuts stop you planting them upside down.
• Bundle them with all the tops facing the same way, label the bundle, and either plant straight away or heel them into damp sand or a spare patch of ground for a few weeks.

Preparing the ground

Cuttings fail for one reason more than any other: weed competition. Clear the site thoroughly before you plant. Dig out couch grass, bramble, bracken and nettle roots by hand, or smother them for a season under black polythene or a thick layer of cardboard and mulch. A small strip of ground you can keep genuinely clean for two seasons is worth far more than a larger patch you cannot.

Once clear, break up the subsoil with a fork — there is no need to work it down fine. Add a barrowload of well-rotted manure or leaf mould per square metre and fork it into the top 20cm. On heavy clay, work in grit; on thin sandy soil, add compost. Alder and willow will take wet ground, sweet chestnut wants acid soil, and hazel and field maple are content almost anywhere that drains.

Planting the cutting

Push the flat-cut base into the soil so that two-thirds of the cutting is buried and only 5–8cm of stem, with two or three buds, remains above ground. Deep planting is the secret: it keeps the wood damp, protects the buds from frost, and encourages roots to form all along the buried stem rather than only at the base.

Make a slit with a spade or a sturdy dibber, drop the cutting in, and firm the soil around it with your heel until there is no air pocket left. Spacing depends entirely on what you are growing:

• Willow for rods: 45–60cm apart in rows, if you want a dense bed for weaving.
• Hazel: 3m apart, so each stool has room to spread its roots and its crown.
• Sweet chestnut and field maple: 2–3m apart.

Water them in if the ground is dry, and mark the rows with canes so you do not lose them to the hoe or the mower.

Mulching and the first season

Mulch immediately, while the soil is still damp. A layer of 5–8cm of well-rotted bark chip, straw or leaf mould around each cutting will hold moisture and suppress weeds through the crucial first year. Keep the mulch a hand's width clear of the stem so it does not soften the bark, and top it up in late spring when the worst of the winter wet has passed.

Water properly during any dry spell in that first summer — one good soak a week beats a daily sprinkle, because it drives moisture down to where the new roots are. Hand-weed around each cutting rather than strimming, which will slice through soft new shoots before you see them. If rabbits or deer are about, fit spiral guards or a small mesh cage; a single night's browsing can undo a whole season's growth.

The first cut

Leave the new stools alone for two, ideally three growing seasons. Let them build roots and a good head of stems before you ask anything of them. Then, in the following winter, cut every stem back hard to within 5–10cm of the ground with a sharp billhook or pruning saw. This low cut is what makes a proper stool: the base swells, dormant buds break along it, and the spring after you will get a thicket of straight rods instead of one leggy stem.

From then on, cut on a rotation — hazel every seven to ten years, willow every one to three, sweet chestnut every twelve to fifteen. Return the brash as a mulch around the stool, keep the weeds back for the first few cycles, and it will quietly outlive you.