Random Tree Cutting

I’ve been working on a lot of small management jobs that have been on my list for some time now.  Several of these have to do with trees that are threatening to fall on or to shade out desirable species.  When a tree begins to lean over, the area covered by its shadow increases.  Lateral branches turn upwards and eventually form what amounts to a line of sapling trees growing along the trunk of the leaner.  New growth adds weight that will eventually make the tree fall.  The Wild Black Cherry tree above is not only causing a thinning of grass in the shade zone.  It is overtopping a grove of Redbud and Carolina Buckthorn that will suffer some severe damage if landed upon by the falling tree.

Removing the tree eliminates both the shade hazard and the threat of physical damage to surrounding vegetation.  Unlike most upright trees, leaning trees offer a limited direction toward which they will fall.  Fortunately, a good cut and a little bit of shoving allowed me to drop this tree without damaging any of the shrubs I was trying to protect.

Actually bringing the tree to the ground is usually the least time consuming part of the process.  It’s taking the tree apart and moving it to a brush pile that takes up most of my time.  When I don’t have time to finish the job before days end, as was the case here, I leave the branches in a conspicuous place where I won’t fail to clear them up later.  In this case I left them blocking one of the main trails leading from my house.  There’s no way I can forget about them being here.

Here is another leaning tree, also a Wild Black Cherry.  This species accounts for 90 percent of the leaning trees I encounter.  In this case, the tree is threatening a cluster of oak saplings seen on the right side of the photo.

I didn’t have time to take the whole tree down before it got dark, but I did remove the lateral branches that produced the majority of shade.  If I don’t happen to make it back to this site this winter, the oaks will still be able to receive needed sunlight next growing season.

Some trees are removed just to eliminate the shade they produce.  This Tuliptree was shading the same cluster of oaks being threatened by the leaning cherry.

The oaks in question can be recognized by the dead leaves that they hold into winter.  These persistent leaves make it fairly easy to spot oaks in a grown up field.

With the shade producers removed, the oaks will respond by rapidly increasing their size.  Removed trees were intentionally cut so as to leave a tall stump.  The stumps will be shortened this spring, and herbicide will be applied to the fresh cut.

Removal of this Tuliptree has been on my to do list for several years, but there always seemed to be more urgent activities that kept me from the task.  Tuliptrees are fast qrowing and have the ability to shade out a large area of grass, so it’s best not to let them go for very long.  Notice just to the right of the Tuliptree is a Wild Black Cherry leaning out from the old fence row.  The original tree top has died and a side branch has grown up to produce a nice sized tree.  Eventually, the leaning trunk will not be able to sustain the weight of the new top and the tree will fall.  When it falls, it will most likely hit the Flowering Dogwoods in the center foreground of the photo.  I’ll probably have to take the cherry down before it falls on its own.

I dropped the Tuliptree right on the trail.  There’s no way I could possibly forget to clear it away.

There are some pretty widely spaced growth rings here.  Ten years ago I could have cut this tree with my loppers and carried the whole thing over to the brush pile.  I now aggressively attack the small trees invading the grassland areas, so I won’t have trees of this size to deal with later.

One disassembled tree ready to be carried off.

The trail is once again open for business.

Three Tuliptrees and two cherries were added to this already existing brush pile.  The logs were positioned for maximum use by fence lizards and skinks.  Whether or not I remove more trees this month will depend on the weather.  I’ve already taken care of the worst offenders, but it would be nice to get just a few more.

Removing Field Trees

My last bit of maintenance work to do on the open fields was to cut and stump spray larger trees that are trying to take hold.  Smaller specimens were cut and sprayed as I mowed last fall.  I thought I would get better results if the larger ones were left until they began their spring growth.  Buds have now swelled and leaves are beginning to unfurl, so I’ve begun to systematically remove the remainder of the trees that I have determined should not be allowed to grow in the field.  There’s nothing horrible about these trees.  They are native species that are quite desirable in other locations.  It’s just that the field is managed for sun loving prairie type grasses and forbs and the trees don’t fit that mix.

Not every tree gets cut.  I’m still maintaining a scattering of White Flowering Dogwood, various oak species and a couple of Virginia Pine.  Everything else goes and some of those have gotten rather large. 

The after view.  The trees that are left are spaced far enough apart to allow sunlight to reach the ground on all sides.

Red Maple quickly invaded this area of moister soil in one of the field swales.  The most aggressive field invaders are those species with light seeds that are carried by the wind.  Their seed can easily cover a field in a single season.  Heavy seeded trees often depend on animals such as squirrels of Blue Jays that bury the seeds in open fields as a future food source. Unclaimed acorns become the oaks I am encouraging.

The larger Red Maples have been taken care of, but treatment of new seedlings will be an annual event for several more years before the stand is finally obliterated.

The cut material was removed from the field and stacked atop one of the existing brush piles.  Larger trees are broken down last and the trunks used to weigh down the pile of springy branches.  Brush piles in this condition are much favored by House Wrens as nesting sites.

The most common invading tree is the Tuliptree.  It takes only a few years for this species to go from a seedling to a three inch diameter tree.  The smaller the tree, the easier it is to cut and treat, so the fields should be checked for new sprouts each year.  That means I have to allow time for maintenance.  Every time I do something new, it adds another item to my maintenance list.  Eventually I reach a point where I don’t have time to do all of the maintenance, let alone do anything new.  That’s why I’m now dealing with larger sized trees in this field.  I knew years ago, when these trees were just seedlings, that they should be cut, but at the time, I was busy doing something else that I considered to be of greater importance.  That is called management and management is what I do at Blue Jay Barrens.

Now I have a field dominated by prairie grasses and forbs that contains a scattering of White Flowering Dogwood and Oaks.  I’ll do what maintenance I can here, but I most likely won’t do any major work in this field until the next time the invading trees reach a point that they can no longer be ignored.