Hardwood plantings:
If you have a piece of land
that used to be a woodlot but for one reason or another needs to be planted: there
is another option besides soft wood seedlings dibbled in and left for mother nature to
tend.
Picture this:
110 acres that was decimated by an ice storm. All old trees with large crowns.
When the storm was over it looked as if someone had turned a helicopter upside down
and passed it through the whole stand.
What do you do? Well, they clear cut
the whole thing. There was brush up to your waist in places and such a tangle
you could hardly walk through it. They then sold it to the man across the road
who didn't want the place to become a trailer park or rock quarry. What was he to do with
it?
Below you can see what he did.
I was the foreman and consultant on the job. What you see here is only a small portion of
the 110 acres that was planted.
First
we had to take care of the brush: the Brown Brontosaurus did that trick.
Day upon day for three springs that machine turned brush into chips with us
right behind it augering holes, filling them with composted soil, planting the trees
( all hardwoods ), supporting them with stakes and surrounding them with tree
protector tubes and brush mats.
Then came the irrigation. Eventually a 4,000,000 gallon
farm pond and gravity feed from two holding tanks supplied the water: the well
and windmill weren't up to the
task.
Then the brush saws to keep the seedlings ahead of the stump sprouts. It takes
four men two weeks to cover the site.
To say this is the largest privately conducted hardwood planting anywhere would be, to the
best of our knowledge, absolutely true. So far it has been a
rousing success: thanks to a willing crew, a couple of great assistants and a
land owner with a vision and the willingness to overcome even the most difficult of challenges. Some of
the trees are 6 feet out of the tubes. 100 years will
tell the real story.
If you have deep pockets and a similar situation, contact
me. I believe that I now have more experience with this
sort of thing than anyone else: I have contacts for everything from manufacturing
specialty planting trailers to building irrigation systems to acquiring composted soils. This type of
project revolves around logistics and I can produce the right
stuff at the right time. Please, bear in mind that during the spring
is when this sort of work is best undertaken. There is a limited time frame for planting but brush clearing can
occur most anytime the snow is not too deep.
In some areas we saved the
better trees. When
able,
we interplanted.
There are roughly 10,500 trees.
There were usually 12 members in the crew.
The over all time involved was three
springs.
The work of pruning and maintaining the stand
continues with a full time employee.
Like I said: if you have deep enough
pockets,
this is possible.
