What a Suck Up

Aspen at High Fen

By Mathew Hay, Natural Capital Manager, 25th June 2024

This spring is the first since we assumed management control of High Fen Wildland and could dictate what grazed where. We’ve got some lovely cows on parts of the site, helping to knock down thistles and nettles, all the while disturbing the ground and opening up the sward to allow new trees and scrub to colonise come the autumn.

But in the places where livestock can’t now reach, the natural world is wasting no time in reclaiming some space. This really hit home, as I drove up to the site’s farmhouse and saw the adjacent field full of grey poplar suckers.

Grey Poplar is a naturally occurring hybrid of Aspen (Populus Tremula) and White Poplar (Populus Alba) and has characteristics of both species. Like many Poplars, it reproduces largely through ‘suckering’ – sending out long roots from which offshoot offspring grow. In this way, the parent tree can directly sustain the emerging ‘suckers’, helping them to grow rapidly in a single summer, ideally to a height that browsing deer cannot reach.

The result will be a new stand of Grey Poplar, all of which are clones of the parent tree or, put another way, all of which are one organism. In the USA, entire woodlands are sometimes comprised of a single aspen clone, making these organisms some of the largest and oldest living things in the world.

We’re delighted to see our Poplars spreading so fast at High Fen. It’s creating a new habitat and, while it isn’t strictly a native tree species, it will provide a lot of the benefit that water-loving aspen does for wildlife. It should also provide us with some stunning colours come autumn. Watch this space for photos of golden leaves shimmering in a crisp November breeze!