Woody Meadow coppicing experiments underway

In late June PhD student Lavinia Chu and volunteers planted over 1000 Australian woody plants in the Burnley field station as part of a long-term coppicing experiment to evaluate plant response to coppicing. The results from this experiment – part of Lavinia’s PhD research - will help inform the design of future Woody Meadows. The 77 species of shrubs and small trees vary in their mature height and when planted together create a three-layered Woody Meadow planting for different types of sites (see figure below). Coppicing (hard-pruning of plants close to ground-level) regenerates plants and encourages dense canopies with lots of flowers, but not all plants can recover from losing most of their leaves and stems. Woody Meadow plants should ideally be strong re-sprouters and have vigorous growth after coppicing. Plants in this study will be coppiced over two years to determine which species recover better and how coppicing changes plant form. Through this research Lavinia will also identify plant traits associated with strong re-sprouting. This will inform the design of more resilient Woody Meadows and expand the range of suitable plant species available to designers and open space managers.

The experimental plants are flowering and looking healthy since being planted four months ago. Lavinia will be undertaking the first coppicing in November.

Lavinia’s PhD supervisors are Dr Claire Farrell, Dr Chris Szota and Prof Stefan Arndt

Figure 1. Some of the species used in this experiment, grouped based on their mature height.
Emergent layer (left to right): Adenanthos sericea, Banksia marginata, Eucalyptus erythrocorys.
Bump layer (left to right): Calothamnus robustus, Isopogon formosus.
Base layer: Darwinia neildiana, Grevillea dimunata.
Images: Stefan Arndt (background photo of the Birrarung Marr Woody Meadow); Lavinia Chu (photos for the 7 species in the coppicing experiment).