Oh, you lucky girl, that forest floor is the place for all the humus you could ever want...plus probably the site of many flowering perennials...such as "trillium". Sometimes such plants might not be suggested to be moved out of their domain.....we cant pick trillium from the wild in Ontario...its our Provincial Flower. Did you notice by any chance the oak leaves which might have fallen in the past year....maybe earlier than that...were still in the leaf stage..not broken down. The experts all say that oak leaves make for not the best leaf to go into a compost unless chopped up because they don't break down readily. They are very adept to be used as insulating material --as mulch, around plants that need insulating such as hydrangea that need to have their wood extend into spring for any chance of bloom. The acidness of the forest floor though should be recognized as such...and not for putting around plants ...say..such as peony, iris, clematis ..et al they prefer a more alkaline side to their soil.

Tom, don't interpret my comments to mean that the East was bare. It stands to reason that places with moderate temperatures and abundant rainfall (or a source of gravity irrigation) had more people. The population was concentrated, but sparse by today's standards. The Atlantic coastal Plain held many large permanent towns a large percentage of the people engaged in farming. Trade routes moved stuff from the Gulf of Mexico to Chesapeake Bay quite efficiently. A sort of 'super highway' trail went from the South along the fall line (that point on a river where the last big rapids divides the navigable/not navigable parts). At the intersections of these trails, towns grew up, and the writings of the first Virginians mention many such trails. Around these towns, the land was likely open and the pressure on game animals was likely intense. Away from these routes, wild lands encroached. Recent estimates of population between the Appalachians and the Atlantic start at one million. Some argument can be made for figures twice that, but if you accept one million, then large areas had to be farmed to support them, and records do show large areas of farming. For comparison, there are upwards of 95 million inhabiting the area now, and we still have woodlands. Not as wild and full of imports, but large areas of the East still look pretty wild. Here in Pennsylvania, we had governors who pushed for buying up failing farms in the early 20th century. The result is the largest state forest system in the lower 48 states. Some counties in the "Northern Tier" are largely state forest. If you walk the woods, you come upon artifacts from that era, mostly in the form of disappearing buildings, rotting or charred. Stone walls are not rare, but seem incongruent among the big oak, maple and cherry trees. This is in one hundred years, and the woods look pristine. Some examples of the consequence of depopulation of the Indians: After tangling with the French and English for about 100 years (1630-1750), many of the Iroquois packed up from their home in NY and moved to Ohio. Reason #1 of course was to get to a place with more furs. PA governor Hamilton took notice and wrote to NY governor Clinton about it in 1750. They would not have been able to move unless the area they were going to was open for immigration. The Mandan Indians, much later, appear in the records from the 1700s. The lived in ND and SD, mostly agriculturalists in permanent towns. Lewis and Clark visited them, and records from just before that time estimate their population at about 4,000. By 1838, when a count was made, there are less than 200, a 95% decrease. One record says that the small pox epidemic left only 31 out of 1600 people in 2 towns. Eastern Indians fared similarly, only there were no Europeans to document it. After their population crashed, they, like many before them, joined up with related tribes for safety. This left big holes on the plains so that when whites got there, they found them empty.

Thanks for all the complimentary comments! When we first moved in approximately 15 years ago, we fashioned something out of nothing really, utilizing the time available during the kid's afternoon nap times. We didn't even realize that there was a set of steps - the area was quite overgrown with forest floor vegetation and a number of large seedlings growing up the slope. Originally from Yorkshire, England, the notion of using the rocks appealed to me since they reminded me a bit of dry stone walls. Equally, it was quite a practical solution to the problem of the gradient. The stones were all harvested from the bottom of the ravine at the back of the house - loaded into a backpack and lugged back up - an inexpensive process, but one that my back wouldn't want to repeat today!!! At first we tried to plant directly into the ground - not an easy task given the number of large roots and various boulders encountered below the surface. Over time, despite our efforts to improve the soil, we came to realize that planting in pots offered a viable, practical alternative and, gradually, I've reduced the number of hostas in the ground to one - Pacific Blue Edger, just visible at the top of the bird's eye photo. Each year, many of the hostas remain in the same location, but having them in containers has allowed for much greater flexibility, together with additional opportunities to mix and match! Now that the kids are older, I have extra time to invest in researching and procuring more hostas. Here on Vancouver's North Shore, it's a great climate and environment for these plants to prosper - a little ironic, therefore, that the majority of my latest acquisitions have had to travel from Ontario (where a much larger variety is available -whine, whinge!!!). That said, as I have mentioned in previous posts, my space is limited. I have a self-imposed quota of 125 and I'm there already! Anyways, thanks again for all of the positive feedback! BC

Unless you go to the effort of actually "killing" the trees you cut down, then yes INDEEDY they will grow back and it's not pretty...spindly, bent, leaning toward whatever sun they can find and very poor quality trees will result. After you cut the trees down, kill them systemically within hours of cutting them. Your MNR or Conservation Authority or even an arborist can tell you what product will work the best for the species you are cutting down. I live inside a maple woods farm woodlot (city subdivision) with a smattering of Black Cherry, American Beech, Alternate leaf dogwood etc. I'm about 1 hour to the west of you. Our woods is not great... 3rd growth sugarmaple forest so like yours, it is VERY tall (all maples are about 70' tall) and the canopy is very high and sparse. We have a contract in our subdivision that we can't touch the trees unless they become sick or die and even then we have to petition to the city to allow us to get a tree expert to come in and take the tree out. At any rate, being a 3rd growth forest we see a poorly developed layering of the woods. High canopy with nothing underneath. So I've been working on finding species that will thrive in the understory to hopefully build it up at different levels. It takes a lot of experimenting to see what works best but so far I've added 45 new species that are all thriving and only 2 or 3 things have not done well. My local MNR told me that restoring the understory is next to impossible but I wasn't willing to accept that and give up and so far things are going well. On the ground we've managed to keep masses of Blue Cohosh, Trout Lily, Red Trillium, White Trillium etc...these were all here when we moved in but are at risk because all the other neighbors in the subdivision have gone against the city contract and removed them all. If you are interested, here is what we have successfully added to the wooded aread of the backyard in 2 years: Existing Native Trees, Shrubs and Plants Sugar Maple Black Cherry American Beech Pin Cherry Alternate Leaf Dogwood Highbush Cranberry Blue Cohosh (+s) White Trillium Red Trillium Jack-in-the-Pulpit Removed Alien Invasives Garlic Mustard Oriental Bittersweet (poison ivy also removed due to children and pets) Native species added Red Oak (1) Downy Serviceberry (3) Pumpkin Ash sapling (1) Eastern Redbud (2) Eastern Redbud seedlings (2) Arrowwood Viburnum (3) Red Osier Dogwood (1) Red Osier Dogwood seedlings (6) American Hazelnut (1) Nannyberry (1) Spicebush (9) Winterberry Bush (3) Silky Dogwood Bush (1) Silky Dogwood seedlings (6) Blue Beech Sapling (1) BurOak (1) Bur Oak Sapling (1) Winged Sumac seedlings (3) Spotted Jewelweed White violet (2) Purple violet (5) Yellow violet (2) Pale Corydalis (3) Bloodroot (+ Âs) Mayapple (+Âs) Wild Ginger (3) Bunchberry (3) - OctÂ04 did not survive winter Bunchberry seeds - octÂ05 Blue Eyed Grass (3) SolomonÂs Seal (6) False SolomonÂs Seal (+Âs) Canadian Columbine (2) Baptisia Australis (1) White Baneberry "DollÂs Eyes" (2) White Baneberry "DollÂs Eyes" Seeds - octÂ05 Red Baneberry seeds - octÂ05 Lady Fern (3) Christmas Fern (3) Cinnamon Fern (3) Male Fern (1) Ostrich Fern (+Âs) Wood Fern (1) HartÂs Tongue Fern (2) Maidenhair Fern (2) Royal Fern (3) Sensitive Fern (+Âs) Crested Shield Fern (1) Garlic Mustard and Oriental Bittersweet are 2 species that will take over an understory if they are allowed to take hold. If you are serious about working on your understory I would survey it first and make sure you don't have an invasion of any of the alien invasivies and get rid of those first if you do. Opening up the canopy will just throw those things into hyper-growth. Doing ground planting with native plants and shrubs will help prevent the areas from being taken over by the non-native, invasives. I also agree with the poster who said removing clumps of sugar maples would be more beneficial than overall thinning. You will get the same benefit but in grander doses and it will be much easier to introduce new species in clearings than to try to get something to grow in an un-natural way (like I am). The MNR told me "that it's next to impossible because even the understory shrubs and trees need to be able to compete to a certain extent with the large/tall trees. To try to get them to do it after the fact is almost impossible." So if you clear small areas throughout your woods you will have clearings where you can add trees like Tulip Tree, Red or Bur Oak etc... along with shrubs and plants and the will be able to thrive with the prescribed amount of sun/shade mixture. Sun from above but shade when the sun is at an angle on the rest of the woods. Call your local Conservation Authority office and ask about their re-forestation offers. My Conservation Authority and the London office work together to offer GREAT deals on native trees and shrubs to anyone with large tracts of land who wish to naturalize, reforest or create windbreaks. The trees are extremely inexpensive and well worth the effort to pick them up. I don't know what your office is but here's the page for my office so you can see the kinds of deals they have: Thames River Conservation Authority This page is the hardwoods section but you can also get fir trees and shrubs. For really cheap seedlings you will want to look for native tree/shrub/plant services in your area or come down to LongPoint (actually Walsingham) to a place called "Acorus Restoration". Bare root seedlings are 2.00 each and they have almost all native species respective to southern Ontario. They do large government and private restoration projects but are also open to the public. I have purchased a grand majority of my plants, shrubs and trees from this place because even if they die, I'm only out a few bucks. Here is their website: Acorus Restoration Acorus Restoration is used to dealing in large volumes so even if you ordered a huge amount they should be able to accomodate you. Email replies by these folks are kinda unreliable sometimes and the whole place is very *WIERD* (I can tell you off-list about it if you like to email me about it). But the plants are good quality and seem to thrive just fine. Good luck with your project and keep us updated on how it's going. Barb southern Ontario, CANADA zone 6a