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Forests as a whole? Sure. Forests as your yard? Not so simple.
For eons, forests would burn every 15 years or so, naturally in small chunks. That's not desirable in a yard. Furthermore we've prevented it as a society for a century and a half.
Yep, and a hundred years ago there weren't Asian invasive plants that would choke out the understory in as little as a few years. If I didn't maintain my woods the Chinese Privet and Chinese Tallow would take over in no time.
About 5 years ago I bought an old Gravely walk behind tractor with a 30" brush mower attachment, and I use it about twice a year to mow unwanted saplings and chop up twigs and branches. It works beautifully! There are other brands too such as Billy Goat and DR Field & Brush mower.
Right now I have so many fallen or leaning trees from hurricane Sally, which is requiring the use of my chainsaw and some burning, it probably take most of the winter to get it cleaned up.
It's amazing that the forests survived for eons without maintenance.
Yes, it is unfortunate that people live around them and risk being destroyed.
Historically, fires are the way forests cleanses itself; rejuvenate themselves with new growth on the forest floor; how they get rid of burrowing insects that spread far and wide and slowly kill forests.
I moved into this place this past April, which is surrounded by forest and my landlord gave me a small plot for a garden but I had an immediate problem...all the topsoil had eroded and just left clay. I didn’t want to buy a bunch of amendments for the soil so I began to look around and saw that there were tons of dead trees and branches lying about and I wondered how I could use them so I did some googling and learned about an ancient method called hugelkultur, which is basically where you dig a shallow pit and fill it with the decaying wood and then pile other materials on, lasagna gardening style and using what you have and then covering the whole thing over with the dirt you removed. You can get wildly creative with it or you can be more sedate in order to fit into an HOA. You can skip the step of digging a hole for it, but that leaves the problem of what soil to put on top. My landlord had several piles from building his house and a bobcat to move it so that made it easier.
Since I needed a project and some exercise I started hauling wood over to the garden and made a couple of hugel mounds, and now I have more planned. It’s been at least two weeks since we had a rain and they are still moist on top because they hold moisture really well. Think about a rotting log; it’s like a sponge and the wood holds moisture in reserve but doesn’t impose. The wood breaks down over several years and continues to feed the plants during that time. Some people build them up to six feet tall and those hold more water and last longer, though they shrink over time. I went over today to see one in a St.Louis garden and he had built his on the sides of the yard like berms to hide some dumpsters and an ugly driveway.
I’m so excited and obsessed about this that I started a master gardener class and I’m going to do my class project about it. Google “hugelkultur.” Lots of stuff on Pinterest and permies.com.
If you insist on a "neat as a pin" unnatural city park, pick up the debris. If you want a more natural woodland setting leave all but known diseased trees that might infect others. Some standing dead trees and coarse woody debris (CWD) isn't a bad thing...just the opposite. If you pick up everything you are removing beneficial detritivores, fungi, recycled nutrients, and microorganisms that can keep your woodland healthier, not to mention provide food and shelter for more wildlife. There are many places in European forests where so many generations of trees and associated microbial symbiotes have been removed that the soil is almost sterile. It no longer has the biologic community that supports germination and growth of new trees and other native plants. A seedling doesn't just grow in mineral soil. It needs to develop a relationship with mycorrhizae in order to survive. If you want to keep your woodland intact, you don't want a overly groomed park. Healthy forests are "messy", not tidy. What about a compromise? Maybe a tidy perimeter immediately surrounding your house but a gradual transition to a more natural woodland around that? Do some reading about your particular type of forest and its management (you didn't mention what type of woodland it is). Talk to local woodland management experts. Just a sampling of many articles about forest diversity and health:
People differ in what they want from their property. I've usually been fortunate to own several acres of relatively undeveloped woodland around a cleared area where the house sits. I maintain my little clearing, I don't touch the woods. They are left to do what they want. If I find a tree dying of a known invasive pest or disease I MAY remove it and treat the remains to protect the others. Depends on what it is. FWIW, I've had neighbors and one particular coworker who managed their wooded properties very intensively. Every dead limb pruned, every fallen branch picked up, every imperfect tree removed. Walking around such a golf-course-level-manicured park was depressing. It seemed devoid of life, boring and silent. I find peace in witnessing a myriad of small lives humming along doing what they do. Maybe my neighbor or coworker thought their places were peaceful, but peace is subjective...peace can be so pervasive it appears almost dead. Mausoleums are peaceful too.
Thank you very much for your thorough answer. It gave me a new perspective and a lot to think about. I think the neighbors you describe view their woods as an extension of their lawn. They pick up fallen branches under trees in their yard, so they feel compelled to do the same in their woods.
I think my problem is the age of my woods. My house is close to 100 years old, and I'm sure these woods have been here longer than that. Pine trees have to fall eventually. If I don't do any maintenance, eventually I'll end up with a couple hundred fallen dead pines (or maybe not dead, given the increase in windstorms). At that point the land serves no purpose other than to nourish the soil with new rotting debris. It wouldn't be usable for walking, hiking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, or even just sitting and enjoying my woods. After 20 years of not maintaining my woods, the result is truly chaotic. Similar conditions in the adjoining woods behind my property hint that this is an old-growth forest that is in decline. I'm not an expert on this; I'm just surmising this from the large quantity of huge trees that have fallen in recent years. Honestly, it's fairly unsightly.
The longer I neglect my woods, the harder and more expensive it will be to remove individual trees all piled up on one another---removal will be difficult if fallen trees are blocking the exit to the road.
You make a very good point about these being living woods with living soil. Of course, there are plenty of leaves, pine needles, pinecones, and smaller sticks that build up the soil. To be honest, I will try to never own a house surrounded by pines again. They just topple over too easily and shed branches, cones, and needles like crazy on the lawn.
So I'm thinking that your suggestion of a compromise is a good one. I'm clearing a trail through the woods (which doesn't require cutting anything down, just picking up fallen limbs and debris). I could clean up enough of the surrounding woods so that walking through them is pleasant.
I also think that chipping some of the wood might satisfy the need for soil amendments.
Last edited by Last1Standing; 09-28-2020 at 10:34 AM..
I think a lot of folks look at an issue and think of one big problem when they could just break it down into smaller tasks. OP, go in to your woods every day and work for half an hour making piles of these dead branches and vegetation. Then either haul it to the depression and/or wood chip it all. It is amazing what you can do with a little bit of effort each day (and it counts as exercise too).
Actually this is exactly what I've been doing for the last 3 weeks. I also paid someone to help me do it and quickly got to the end of my landscaping budget for the year. After 3 weeks I'm about 10% finished. If I had followed your advice 20 years ago I wouldn't have this problem.
If it's as bad as you say it is I'd just hire someone with a forestry mulcher like mentioned earlier. The pine forest next door to my property was so thick with brush you couldn't even walk through it two months ago, but now it's clean and park-like. In my area it costs about $1200-1500 for an acre.
(I don't know why that pic is sideways, but it gives you an idea of how it works)
A stand of pine trees doesn't make for a diverse, interesting woods-- Their fallen needles make a thick carpet on the ground with very acidic soil underneath, and they drop resin that's toxic to many other plants. Stands of conifers usually have minimal growth in the understory.
If pine trees live, say, 100 yrs, then you'd expect 1% of them to die each year on average. Snags (standing dead trees) have their place in the ecosystem. One or two per acre is not only acceptable but healthy.
If you're only interested in a hiking trail, just push the obstructing trees/branches out of the way. No need necessarily to actually remove them.
How many pines are we talking about? How big are they? Talk to your county forester to see if they have any commercial value...Maybe you can sell them and the lumber company will do all the work for you.
A stand of pine trees doesn't make for a diverse, interesting woods-- Their fallen needles make a thick carpet on the ground with very acidic soil underneath, and they drop resin that's toxic to many other plants. Stands of conifers usually have minimal growth in the understory.
If pine trees live, say, 100 yrs, then you'd expect 1% of them to die each year on average. Snags (standing dead trees) have their place in the ecosystem. One or two per acre is not only acceptable but healthy.
If you're only interested in a hiking trail, just push the obstructing trees/branches out of the way. No need necessarily to actually remove them.
How many pines are we talking about? How big are they? Talk to your county forester to see if they have any commercial value...Maybe you can sell them and the lumber company will do all the work for you.
It's not that way here in the South unless it gets burned every few years. Any pine forest here will eventually get overtaken with oaks, sweetgum, Magnolia, and holly if fire is kept out long enough. A lot of native shrubs like blueberry, rhododendron, and wax myrtle love the acidic soil.
I hope this is the right forum. I have about an acre of woods on my property, all around my house. About 75% large white pines and 25% hardwoods. I'm confused about what I should be doing to maintain my woods. Problems that have built up over the last 20 years:
Fallen branches on the ground, mainly from the pines. (Hundreds, nay thousands of branches.)
Several old pines have fallen; other dead pines are still standing.
Brush grown up along the perimeter
One cause of these problems is the increase in violent wind storms in recent years. I recently took care of the brush and am working on getting the fallen pines cut up. I had an arborist look at my property and he said that the trees that are within striking distance of the house are healthy. Questions:
Should I be picking up all the fallen branches? It's a huge job, but if I don't do it it looks terrible. I suspect that woods full of dead trees (standing and fallen) lower the property value?
Is it OK to dump fallen branches and cut up logs in a depression at the back of the property, rather than carting it all to the dump? Burning is not an option. Last time I did that I set fire to the roots of a tree that was dead inside (looked great on the outside) and vowed to never burn on my property again.
I ask these questions because when I was in Germany many years ago I was surprised to see that wooded areas were neat as a pin, like a park. I asked why and was told that communities go to great lengths to pick up fallen branches to avoid spreading disease, because of the low quantity of wooded areas in some communities---they want to protect what woods they have.
I'd like to be able to walk through my woods and be surrounded by serene beauty, not chaos and decay. Not sure I can afford that dream, though---it would be expensive to clear that much stuff and dispose of it.
Thanks for your wisdom!
Sounds like the whole State of California. Lack of maintenance has left the forest floor ripe with dried/dead fire fuel. We're even known to have fires in them.
Buy/rent a chipper and start pulling the dead stuff out and chip it. Then sell the chips as compost to gardeners, horticulturists and others. Or, hire a crew and sell the chips. (Just be sure to make fresh salsa!)
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