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Hi All,

I am two years into my restoration project of my small holding now and in November last year I discovered under a mass patch of brambles that next door's pig farm had been leaking slurry onto a small part of my land, the leak has now been sorted out and it has been stopped but it has left me with a very boggy piece of land where I had been planning to plant my little woodland. My question is if I put Willow and alder in to slurp up the damp will the ground be too rich for them to live? If it is then does anybody have any other suggestions?

I would think this depends on you soil structure, and more imporatantly sub soil structure.
Plant using big holes and infill with fresh soil, start planting furthest away from the source of the leak, and leave the bit nearest a year or two to let the earth sort itself out?
If it's really wet just stick willow whips straight in the boggy bit without rooting them, and see if they take, it's no effort and you never know.

Thank you very much, I will give it a go

Depending on your soil type, the sogginess might dry out fairly quickly now that the leak has been sorted. If you plant willow, then you have the choice of getting rid of it or being stuck with it.

Zoe

I don't mind being stuck with willow, am looking to coppice it eventually

When we had to have some trees cut down, as they were considered dangerous by the Insurance bods, the tree surgeon told us that our neighbours lower down the street wouldn't thank us because the lack of these 5 poplars would raise the water table so significantly it might cause flooding. Apparently they're very thirsty trees.

Locally they were called Manchester Poplars, although I think another name for them is Black Poplar. I've recently looked into short-rotation coppicing (just on a domestic scale) and see that the powers that be recommend growing poplars (don't know which variety) as well as willow. Other sites, however, have comment how poor poplar is for burning.

Oh thanks for that, I will look into it too!Think poplar is a bit smoky as far as I remember but i could be wrong

Having said that, if its free, smoky I can handle