Nettles!
Our copse is good at growing nettles! Nettles can be good for wildlife, but if they grow too vigorously, they swamp everything else. So we are trying a couple of different methods to reduce the richness of the soil and give other plants a chance to compete.
In one area we’ve used backhoes provided by Monmouthshire County Council to break up the top few inches of soil, along with the shallow nettle roots.
Elsewhere we are practising traditional meadow management: cutting down the summer’s growth and raking it off, thus removing the nutrients that the growing plants had absorbed. No doubt some nettles will grow back, but in future years we’re hoping to see a bit more biodiversity as a result of these treatments.