Keeping an eye on things

I’m in the habit of taking regular walks through the woods by my job, when I’m on lunch break. The area I walk through is a young forest, maybe 40-50 years old with a few old open grown red oak wolf trees. The rest is a mix of black cherry, black birch, oak, beech, Aspen, hickory, red and sugar maple, and a few old black locust groves. It’s all on former pasture land that was abandoned. So I take walks through every week, getting to really know the place. I saw this young red maple that caught my eye today. It’s under attack by something and is covered in “warts” of some kind.



Then I wandered into a more open spot where there was a large break in the canopy and spotted the noxious invasive Tree Of Heaven. I grabbed a large sharp rock and girdled it. I love and appreciate living trees, but take exception to the ones that outcompete the natives and take over entire areas. We’ll see if it kills the weed tree over time.

There are huge swaths of invasive Bittersweet choking the forest in places too. I wish I could just go to town in there with a hatchet someday.

 

Toh don’t die it multiplies.

 

Yeah I'm fully expecting it to send up suckers from the root system... So I'll be back to keep tabs on it for a while. The one good thing about that tree's location is the canopy is closing in fast, so maybe the combination of low sunlight and my obsession with stopping it will do it in for good.

 

That will kill it... a copper nail is less obvious!

 

I don't mind getting found out for my amateur forestry work
There's actually quite a few TOH growing on the edge of the open field about 100 feet away, which is where this tree sprang from. If I can do it on the sly I'll go up there and girdle all of those too

 

Get a pocket knife so you don't have to use a knife.

 

The Black Locust groves are in full bloom here and smell out of this world.

 

I found a larger Tree Of Hell nearby and made quick work of girdling that one too. As soon as you get under the bark of these things you get hit with a rancid peanut butter stench.
Nasty stuff.

 

Grape, wisteria or bittersweet vine behind it ?

 

That’s Bittersweet choking the small tree in the background to the right of the TOH. Another useless forest killer. On the left side in the background, those dark climbing vines are grape. Plenty of those in the area too.

 

New EDC knife. It was my late grandfather’s but barely used. I think the trees like it. Well, not these trees, but the natives do

 

I had a few minutes to spare before work this afternoon and walked down to the Connecticut River to a place where I thought I spotted an Elm back in the winter. My suspicions were confirmed today, seeing it with leaves on it. Granted this one is twisted and ugly from growing in the flood zone, sucking up brackish water. Still, I admire this tree’s persistence as a species that’s fighting back extinction.

 

These tree of heaven are tenacious. 3 months later and they’ve since sprouted new growth below where I girdled them. Of course I promptly snapped the new stuff right off too The canopy up above looks to be dying back quite a bit.

 

After two years of these nasty tree of heavens being girdled, they’re starting to snap and fall down There’s a nice hole in the canopy and a few young black cherry seedlings on the forest floor that’ll have a chance now.

 

Do you have the spotted lantern fly up there? they love the TOH.

 

It’s been reported sporadically in different areas. That’s another great reason to kill these host trees. I’m always on the lookout for either the lantern flies themselves or their egg sacks. So far I haven’t seen any yet but I’m sure it’s inevitable.

 

Cool place to walk Eric.

I still remember our science text book back in the day talking about forest succession and how old fields eventually turn into woods. I was totally facilitated. I love walking in the woods and imaging how they looked back in the day; especially when you spot old stone walls or fence lines.

 

Same here, I thoroughly enjoy doing some “forest forensics” in whatever woods I happen to be walking in. Tom Wessels from the New England Forests channel on YouTube was instrumental in getting me to notice all the fine details in our woods, in turn learning to read the landscape as a living record. Lots of rich history here.

I live next to a small wooded lot that is owned by the city water department. Right or wrong, I’ve appointed myself “steward of the forest” over there, cutting the invasive Norway maple saplings, clearing snags, killing bittersweet vines, and planting mast producing trees like oaks, black cherries and a couple walnuts. I’m hoping to make it a really nice patch of woods within a few years. I leave the large dead standing trunks as they’re already home to bats and other animals.

 

Tom’s video’s are really amazing!

 

Sometimes fate intervenes in funny ways. This oriental bittersweet vine is choking a tree that already died. Left alone, it’s also eventually going to choke itself to death since it grew right through this old fence loop