Do beech trees grow on awful clay snotty soil!?

[Lazy Sod]

Fairly heavy over chalk here.I have a large beech in my garden, which would have been planted in 1973 when the house was built. Ash grows everywhere here, but not an oak in sight until you climb go out of the village onto the greensand.

 

[Renaultman]

Heavy clay here, beech trees everywhere, all our hedges are tall beech, beech all over west Somerset.

Beach trees in my garden which is pure snot, attached to a Beach wood.

 

[caveman]

But those two won't grow in the same place.
In my millenium wood I planted 10 sweet chestnut to coppice. Not one got above two feet!
Oaks and ash,and alder are now 30 ft.

Acres and acres of coppice chestnut and oak stands in East Sussex and Kent.
The oaks scattered amidst, to "draw" the growth straight from the coppiced stubs.

 

[organicguy]

Acres and acres of coppice chestnut and oak stands in East Sussex and Kent.
The oaks scattered amidst, to "draw" the growth straight from the coppiced stubs.

My wrong, maybe I should have said chestnut won't grow in places that oak will! And I guess that there will be places that Chestnut will grow but not oak!
We have one beech tree and one chestnut in a 12 acre wood on heavy ground, the rest is ash, oak, maple and thorn. used to be elms as well.

 

[caveman]

My wrong, maybe I should have said chestnut won't grow in places that oak will! And I guess that there will be places that Chestnut will grow but not oak!
We have one beech tree and one chestnut in a 12 acre wood on heavy ground, the rest is ash, oak, maple and thorn. used to be elms as well.

Ha.
My bad too.
I should of added on heavy wealden clay.
I have found chestnut stakes made from timber from lighter sandier ground can quite often be subject to "shake" and can easily split and shatter when clouted.

 

[vantage]

We have a row of beeches above the house, which are at a good angle due to the South Westerlies! About the only trees that are going to be left here due to ash dieback, we have two oak trees on the drive, about 6’ high, been there longer than me (53years). It’s certainly humid here. Lower down, we’re at 800’, in sheltered valleys there are lovely stands of beech in Pembrokeshire. I’m fond of beech as my mother was from Beech Hill in Skipton, Yorkshire.

 

[yellow belly]

The beech plantation run by the forestry commission next to my heavy land farm has not thrived as it is on wet
oak planted on similar land is A much better plantation

 

[Av Gorritt]

We have quite a few Beech trees/ hedgerow plants , that I planted many years back . Without exception , they've thrived and been cut back a few times . And they're planted in the type of soil known as "What is this thing of which you speak " on rotten rock . Mountain ash do really thrive - they seem to like to get their roots down the cracks in the rock .

 

[glasshouse]

The old guys used to say that good trees indicated a good farm

 

[Aceface]

I read somewhere a few years ago that Beech trees will be the first to really suffer to almost extinction level in the UK, if predicted climate change has more frequent drought events as they are surprisingly shallow rooted.

 

[Yale]

The old guys used to say that good trees indicated a good farm

Yes,when you see huge solitary trees you know the land is good.