Wonderful! In a few places I have done something exactly like what you are doing. One part of my timberland had some Norway spruce planted, and then some aspen grew up among them and overtopped them. Where the best spruce were, I cut down the aspen and left them lay.

But one thing I do is take a single bit axe--I always use single bit axes because I often use wedges to fell trees and with a single bit axe I can use the back to pound the wedges--to cut the limbs off to make the tree lie flat. Otherwise, after I fell a bunch, I have obstructions to my walking. Of course, I use the chainsaw to cut the larger limbs and sometimes section the trunk.

I am sure you know, Tom, but never walk with a running chainsaw AND your fingers on the trigger. If you stumble, the instinct in to grab the saw tighter and race the chain--DANGEROUS! I like to limb with an axe because it is safer, and I also enjoy it more. I have been around loggers for many years and most injuries come when one is limbing and walking with the saw.

Winter logging is great--less damage, etc., but--and again I would guess you know--one problem can be ice on the base of tree trunks. It can really dull the chain fast. When I find that, I take the axe and chip it off before I start to cut.

Well, have fun,

--spruce

Thanks Spruce. I knew this would grab your attention, if no one else!

Agreed, the running saw is a danger as you move about. The Stihl .026 I was using has the chain break, so I just pop that after each cut. I should have had wedges with me, but as it was quite a hike from the road back to the woods, I had just the saw, a gas can, and a plastic bottle of bar oil, plus the "scrench" in my pocket. I'm going to get one of those sleds they make for hauling gear. Since I snowshoe back there, this will give me more opportunity to take all the gear I need. I like the single-bit axe idea and will incorporate that into my payload.

Yes, doing this kind of stuff at this time of year is great. Overall, I find winter to be the best time to be in the woods.

+oM

I agree, Tom, regarding winter woods.
I was out yesterday, admiring the tree-forms that are hidden by summer foliage. Now is a great time to observe conifers.

I wish I had my own woods. Some day....

Josh

Chainsaw? What kind of a work out is that? You have to fell with an axe. Quite the work out, and you don't run out of things to fell so fast. Done a little managenment myself. The woods here are somewhere around 50 yrs old, so the trees are small. Largest ones being almost 2' in diameter (mostly prunus serotina). I have actually been clearing smaller stuff around the bigger ones. A lot of young sugar maples snaking their way into the canopy at the dismay of the oaks, cherries, slippery elms etc.

Hah hah, Klav. I'll assume you were joking about felling with the ax;^) Actually, and I'll bet you know this, even in the pre-power saw days, crosscut saws were used for the main back cut, with ax coming into play only in the notch cut. Truth to tell, with all the snow we've got, just the walk back to the woods from the road had me a bit winded.

Sounds like an interesting piece of woods, what with the black cherry. I've got just a smattering of them on my land. Nothing to write home about. I've got sugar maple present as well. This tree is so common that I don't place a great deal of value on it. Where it is not interfering with something I like more, I will of course leave them be.

My priority species are N. white cedar, white pine, paper and yellow birches, hemlock, and then, any other trees I introduce to the landscape. For example, I've got the aforementioned balsam poplar and quaking aspen growing there. They're just there. I like them but I'm not managing for them. Meanwhile, up on the somewhat higher, drier part of the field that I'm gradually converting to forest, I wish to get some clusters of bigtooth aspen going. That's my favorite of the Populus tribe. So, if and when I am able to get these started, they will become a priority species.

There are numerous black ash saplings in place. Again, I like these okay, but I don't want this land to convert to a black ash stand, so in situations where they are competing with say, the N. white cedar, they will be coming down. Things like that.

I got to say, for what I'm interested in, this is a dream come true to be able to be doing this sort of forest management. I feel very blessed and I hope some calamity in the financial realm doesn't force us to sell off this property. We've taken some serious blows in that area this year, in ways that have nothing to do with the general economic malaise. So far, we're holding on.

+oM

Klavier:

Yes, using a chainsaw is like cheating. One has to get some practice with a chainsaw to really see what one can do with one, but they are so efficient that it almost seems like a crime to cut down--and cut up--a tree with one. In the old days most felling of big trees was done with a combination of an axe and a big crosscut saw. And people got a lot of exercise doing it.

I never used a chainsaw until I was about 48 yeas old--I am now 70, so I have years of experience--but before I started using a chainsaw I used to fell trees--not that many--with an axe. And I was good at it--not many wasted strokes, and I used to take pride in having the bottom plane of the back cut so flat that it looked like it was cut with a saw.

But, directional felling is limited when felling with an axe. With some care a good hinge can be made, but the felling angles possible are more limited. And, of course, you can't fell against a lean. And if it is windy, you can control the angle of fall to some extent, but not the direction--whether the tree will go backwards or forwards. That can be a big problem! And unless you are really expert at judging a tree's lean, you can easily have the tree fall in the opposite directiion you plan for much too often for comfort, regardless of wind.

I almost never fell a tree without some wedge in it--I have learned the hard way. Tom, or any of you, if a tree is very tall and skinny, sometimes there is not room for a wedge behind the saw. If anyone is interested, and doesn't already have experience, there are a couple of things you can do. Let me know. Cutting trees down with a chainsaw is basically very simple, but there are all kinds of "refinements" and special factors involved with certain kinds of trees in certain kinds of situations. I have been doing this, as I say, for over 20 years, but I am still learning new things, almost all of them the hard way. Hah!!

Just one basic thing I should warn any novices out there about--if a fairly big tree has a really big lean, you need to do a bore cut just behind your undercut, leaving the needed thickness of the hinge, and then work the saw back to sever the backside. If you don't do this the tree can split and you could get hurt, not to mention ruining the log. Anytime I have a really big veneer tree with just a slight to moderate lean, I use this technique to make sure I have no splitting at all in the butt. If the tree is not that big I can be sure to cut the whole hinge off as the tree falls, which is actually best.

--Spruce

Wow, Spruce, that's really quite advanced to be even mentioning the bore cut. That's how we drop all stubs of any size at work. It is the way to go for ultimate control.

+oM

I did a little thinning myself yesterday. Cut down a 6in. American elm to make more room for a bur oak that's holding up a creek bank. Also cut down some honey locust and a small silver maple that was shading out a 4in. eastern red cedar that I plan to use as a corner post when fence the livestock out of the woods.
This was after cutting two pickup loads of fire wood.
I use a 021 sthil with a 14in bar. I bought it to cut up brush because my 029 was too large. Now I only use the 029 for the large stuff.

I have about 300ftx200ft of Alders I was thinking about cutting in hopes of N White cedar seeding it's self.
I think I will cut them anyways because White birch,Tamarack Yellow birch and Willows-not sure of name but they don't grow very tall.I could plant cedar in there but if the chances are better or should I say less work,if they seed themselves I'll save my back from planting.

There is an area a bit bigger that has seeded it's self well,but I think I'll have to cut back the willows to give the cedars more sun.That job is not urgent,I figure I have a couple of years.

lp

Tom:

I am not sure how "advanced" the bore cut is for leaning trees. I remember when some of my friends heard I was cutting some large timber for the first time, that was the one thing they wanted to make sure I understood. I never had anyone demonstrate that to me, but the first time I tried it, just how to do it seemed rather intuitive, and I made a perfect job of it. The one warning I would have for anyone who thinks he is some kind of hotshot, is to be very careful how you first bore into the tree--leave plenty of room for the hinge, and, for goodness sake, dont trust your vision from just one side of the tree, Walk around and see just where the tip of your saw is and make sure you donÂt mess up that hinge even before you really get started. If you do that, you have lost the tree, buster! Sighting the hinge when doing a bore cut is trickier than sighting when you are making a standard back cut.

One subtle thing one needs to do is to judge just how thick the hinge needs to be for any specific tree. A really big and tall tree that is really leaning can have tremendous extra force on the hinge. If the hinge is too narrow, it can collapse from compression failure, and you are in trouble. I leave a hinge about 50% thicker than normal in some trees I am boring. Usually this leads to more "fibers" pulling out of the but log than I would like, but that is better than having the hinge collapse before I am finished cutting. I suppose some people are fast enough to move the saw forward and cut the hinge as the tree falls, but every time I have tried this, I have not been fast enough with the saw.

Much more sophisticated stuff I have had to learn by myself the hard way. For example, at one point I got too confident about what I could do with wedges. I learned that an 80 foot "12" diameter cherry tree canÂt be moved very much at all, at least not directly against the lean, with wedges. What can and canÂt be moved, and just how far, by wedges is something that has taken me years to learn. Factors such as the brittleness of the hinge wood of various kinds of trees takes experience to adjust for, and this can effect just how far over a tree can fall before the hinge breaks and the tree just falls where gravity will take it.

But I have done some extreme things with wedges. A few times I have worked with wedges for a half hour or more to get some big tree to go where I wanted. A few times I have had four or five wedges in a tree going from one side of the cut to the other, and then had them all doubled up--8 to 10 wedges in a tree at the same time. And then a few times with a particularly heavy leaning tree I have even used heavy steel wedges combined with big plastic ones, and had them doubled. Of course I never put a steel wedge in a tree when I might still saw on it. And I always carry an aluminum wedge to move tough trees that I canÂt move with a plastic wedge.

In some ways I have become more expert at this kind of thing than much more experienced professional timber cutters because I am always doing selective cuts where there is usually only one narrow slot I can fell a tree into. Most professional timber cutters donÂt use wedges that much, and just want to get the trees down and bucked fast. If one scrapes another going down, "so what." Speed of felling never was any kind of factor for me, so I take my time, sight the trees from all sides, and as I cut, stop once or twice to see where the saw is on the other side of the tree to make sure I am cutting the hinge square and the tree will go where I want.

Well, here is a simple hint that may help you--if you are cutting small trees that arenÂt too tall and or leaning too much--forget the wedges. Just make your cut and if the tree doesnÂt fall, just push the sucker over. If your son is fairly strong, put him in a pushing position and as you are about to get the hinge set, tell him to push!

Oh, another simple thing--be wary of forked trees. They can be worse than forked tongues! If I am felling a tree and in the direction I want to fell it there is a forked tree, I just assume I will miss the spot where I want to put it and explore other options. A tall tree dropped into a fork of another tree is a mess--usually you canÂt get the tree out, unless you have a tractor to pull it out, and if you do that the forked tree is scraped so badly it is ruined. And vice-versa if the tree you are cutting is forked and that fork is open to a tree in the direction you are felling. I am a very accurate tree feller, but any time there is some big risk if I miss my mark, I assume I will miss it!

Another big, but simple thing--be wary of any tree that may have some rot in it where you are cutting--I could write three or four pages about that issue, but I will just give this alert, and spare the details about the dangers and how to compensate, unless someone has some specific question about how to handle some tree. One of the most common things that happens with a rotten tree, is when you first put the saw into the tree to make the undercut and start cutting, the tree collapses on your saw and you are stuck. I have axe felled trees several times after this happened. I am more wary now, so it hasn't happened recently.

Well, just one more basic issue. That is how trees are affected when they brush the tops of others going down. How far over will they be deflected? And if they will fall fairly substantially into the crown of another tree, how do you get them to roll in the right direction? Well, there is too much to say about this now, but there is a lot one needs to know to be a good selective timber cutter. In some situations when I am thinning and donÂt care about the logs, I deliberately drop one tree right into the crown of another and hope it holds there, and then cut it down section by section. Sometimes this is the best way to minimize potential damage to other trees.

Well, maybe all this is more than anyone wants to know.

--Spruce

the only thing i can add is that if you hunt you may want to leave some limbs holding a few trees up off the ground. brush piles make excellent game bedding areas.

I usually get up into the trees first, wrap some chain around it and then tie the chain to something in the direction I want the tree to go down. Getting someone to pull, or attaching to ride on mower or a tractor makes things even easier. Careful though. I have seen trees drag tractors to fall in the opposite direction. Also watch out for kicking out. It may fall the right way, but it can kick out in the opposite direction. I have seen guys thrown pretty far from a tree that kicked out.

-Werner J Stiegler
Director Binghamton memorial tree program
www.binghamtonmemorialtree.webs.com

Mr. Stiegler:

Exactly right. Or, I might be even more cautious anywhere near a house or anything else that might be damaged. I really believe that I am almost as good at directional tree felling as anyone, but I know I can make a mistake. If you have any doubts, either take the kind of special measures Mr. Stiegler recommends, or call a professional tree removal service that has all the insurance possible. A few years ago a friend had a really large dying tuliptree near his house. There was plenty of room for me to fell the tree for him away from the house--I think better than a 99% chance I could put it exactly where I wanted, but I declined the job because the 1% chance I could destroy his house was just too much.

And, as Mr. Stiegler points out, even tying a chain around a tree is not foolproof. Please be very careful. When I was working in the woods with another man who had a tractor to skid the logs, I made absolutely sure that no matter how badly I messed up my felling, he and his tractor were far out of danger--far, far out of danger!

--Spruce

I was enjoying this thread even before I read about Klavier's version of a lawnmower-throwing trebuchet. LOL

I concur with all you are saying Spruce. One final bit of gear that can help immensely is a come-along, or block and tackle. This provided you are somehow able to secure one end up high enough in the tree to be felled. With this and an anchorage point that is in line with the direction you need it to go, you can really get some mechanical advantage working for you.

I respect your caution. We've had extreme rigging specialists-I won't reveal their names-come in and demo some very far-out rigging techniques. And I've seen these very demos fail miserably. In my opinion, these guys have gotten so enamored of their knowledge and equipment that they go overboard in trying to defy gravity.

I think you are probably right Spruce that because of your goal being very accurate felling rather than "productivity",
you have probably arrived at a point of being superior in this area. And truth to tell, I wasn't really being careful enough the other day. I mean, I got away with some less than perfect cuts and technique, but I guess in my defense, this was because I knew I had room for error. But overall, this is nothing to mess around with if you don't know what you are doing. I'm sure every reader of this thread has seen articles in the news of somebody in their area being killed while dropping trees. It happens every year.

I would have done a little more cutting the other day, but the recoil rope in the saw broke, and I didn't feel like messing with it out in the cold. But there is plenty of time to continue that work. One thing I'm going to be trying to ascertain is whether or not what I'm doing is really helpful to the favored trees I leave behind. It seems intuitive enough that removing competition would help, but I'll be watching to see if the deer now notice the cedars after they're more cleared out and other factors. This is similar to what you are contemplating, 1pptz.

+oM

Is it a feasible option to only girdle some of the unwanted trees and leave them to die while upright, where they can eventually provide habitat for cavity nesting birds, etc.?

Terrene, yes, and in some cases, I am doing this as well, particularly when there is no good felling direction without landing on stuff I don't want damaged.

One tree, a regular quaking aspen, was growing up through a nice grove of cedar. The tree was around 14" diameter. I girdled that one during late summer. On a recent trip up there to that spot, I noticed the wind had finished the job. Oh well, at least in this case, it actually fell down through a bunch of my prized conifers, seeming to do little, if any damage. But again, yes, this is a good technique also.

+oM

I have heated my house exclusively for 30 years with wood. A certified, airtight stove is the way to go if you are going to use wood as fuel. A fireplace is a waste of wood.
Ninety percent of the wood I have used I cut myself on my property. Tree trimmer friends provided the rest. One company stores their trucks, chipper, and stump grinder here. There is more wood here now than when I moved here.
I have an 032 Stihl and a top of the line 020 Stihl the pros use. My climbers don't get used as much as they used to. I'm 65. Spruceman, you have me by five years!
Cutting trees down is not for the amateur. If a guy wants to cut a tree down while standing on a ladder, he's an amateur.
We all have our different way of doing things. Spruceman has got it right. Caution and safety first. Dropping a tree in the woods can be very dangerous. I had a right angle limb snap off a large alder tree as the tree was falling and fly back 40 ft. and broke my hand and glasses. The limb had pushed up against a Fir tree and bent the Fir tree back until the limb broke.

Here's a picture of a couple climber friends up in a Pseudotsuga menziesii (Doug Fir) that is growing down over my bluff. The bottom of the picture is 50 ft. in the air. They were pulled up the first 40 ft. by a truck hooked up to a pully. A small line was thrown up on to a large branch to initiate the climb. They were limbing the tree up to decrease the wind sail. My neighbor had some trees cut down which left this tree more exposed. The bottom guy weighs 275, large for a tree climber. He's no dough boy.

{{gwi:329003}}

Wow Botann, that's one BIG tree. The top of the picture must be at least around 100' and the trunk is still that large with little to no sign of tapering down! I think I'd call a pro if that one had to come down (-:

Terrene, one downside of girdling unwanted trees and leaving them standing is that they will inevitably blow over on the finest specimen in their reach. Snags are great for wildlife, but not so much for other trees.

Terrene:

Not only is girdling trees an acceptable way to remove them, it often can be the best way, depending on your circumstanes and the growth stage of the timber. After I bought my original 213 acre timberland (I have added chunks to it since), I girdled the "unwanted" trees on the whole 213 acres under the federal Forestry Incentives program (FIP) at the rate of 20 acres per year.

Under an earlier topic some of us discussed girdling trees, and my main contribution was to discuss how different kinds of trees should be girdled using different methods to ensure they die quickly and/or don't damage the preferred trees later when they fall. If you plan on doing much girdling, let me know and describe your woods and the kinds of trees and I may be able to save you some grief. Brandon makes a very good point, but with care and the proper girdling methods for each kind of tree and by avoiding a few other "traps," gidling can be a good thing to do.

Botann--You know, getting into tree felling techniques is much more complicated than one thinks when getting started. The issue of falling limbs is something I left out. I have had limbs fall out of trees in some of the most unexpected ways. I think in recent years I have not had any close calls--I was lucky a couple of times, so now I am much more careful and before I cut a tree I look at every limb from every angle and try to imagine the worst thing that can happpen, including the kind of sling back you describe. I was almost killed one time cutting a dead tree that as it began to fall--just where I wanted it to--broke in half and the top came right at me. I ran faster than I ever have before and stumbled and fell, skidding on my stomach, just two feet beyond where the top of the tree crashed down.

This kind of thing is the best argument against girdling trees--if you plan to work in the woods--or even walk much in the woods--fell the trees, don't girdle them.

Tom:

I would not worry much about your thinning/preferred tree release cutting doing anything to encourage deer. Possible, but even if it happens, the effects should be very minor. The benefits to released trees have been documented backwards and forwards by all kinds of research for over 100, maybe 100's of years, as I am sure you know. I give hunting permission for my woods--I have had a number of the hunters come to me and marvel at the timber stand I have. Well, 38 years ago when I bought it, it was a mess of small timber, with mostly poor trees, with little to look at. The seller had it on the market for two years and couldn't get any offers. I saw the potential, but it has taken untold hours of work and sweat and near death from inexperience working in the woods, but now I have an absolute treasure.

--Spruce

Thanks Spruce. Yeah, I think I'm doing the right thing by releasing these cedars. The northern white cedar has a much longer lifespan than does the balsam poplar, of course, so one could just leave things be, and the forest would be dominated by the former species eventually. But as in so many of the operations we foresters set out upon, the goal is to speed up the natural process.

+oM

Tom:

Exactly. And, of course, deciding to take out some of these poplars doesn't mean you have to take them all out, or take them out all at once. Save the best ones that are not obstructing your favored trees, and preserve diversity, if that seems right.

Tom's starting this topic has inspired me to go out and do some "weeding" thinning, or TSI, out in the back of my Winchester land. I have an acre or so of nice black walnut coming up on their own, but sometimes with vines growing on them, sometimes with alianthus or black locust crowding them. After about 10 hours of very scratchy work amid blackberry canes and multiflora rose, I have this little baby stand of trees all "cleaned out." I will have a beautiful stand of black walnut growing there in a very short time--if I didn't do this work, I would have two or three nice trees, if I was lucky, and then nothing but an ugly mess of misshapen trees and vines. I will have to go back into the thorn patch a few more times to keep the vines off and do more thinning, but it is well worth it.

--Spruce

I spoke earlier about clearing some alders so white cedar,tamarack,white and yellow birch would seed it's self.I would like to know if butternut was present in the cedar - birch plant community.There are a few black ash and white pine on the dryer spots,if there are others that would fit in,
I would consider planting a few.
This area is part of a larger 10 acre swampy ground.
The man I bought the place from said it was mostly cedar when he cleared it during the 1930's.He also mentioned that when they put tile in for drainage ,they dug up white pine logs that where buried under the peat.Those logs still good after who knows how long,he cut into boards.I made 3-4 acres into a shallow pond 2-3 feet deep.On a very dry year afew years back I used my tractor to dig a little deeper into the pond floor,a foot or so deep I hit limestone solid enough to keep the tractor up.Then the stone ended and I dug into the muck 3-4 feet down and started digging out large peices of wood.Some resembled Elm,I also found whole white pine cones preservedwell enough that I was able to find seed inside,but it was not viable.I now have the urge to get a back hoe the next time it gets that dry,and see what else is buried way down.

What I'm trying to do is restore as much of the plant diversity that was present in it's virgin state.
On the places I worked on in the past most of the trees I mentioned are indeed seeding themselves,I also added a few hemlock.There is 1 butternut tree down where the Higher ground meets the swamp,but it's suffering from butternut canker.There are a few butternut trees that are growing well and don't seem to be bothered by the canker.That would be my seed source.Any thoughts?

lp

Spruceman - your forest sounds spectacular! And your close call with the dead tree AND death must have been gotten your blood flowing! 8-O

I am curious how did you girdle the trees in your forest? I don't use a chainsaw, although I am a sizeable and strong female, I tried using one a couple times and think they are noisy, smelly, and my hands felt funny afterwards. So I pay my buddies who have chainsaws and the tree service to do any serious tree work.

However, there are a few smaller (4-6" diameter maybe) trees here and there on the 2 properties I own that I would like to girdle. What is the best technique to use if you don't use a chainsaw?

For example, my 2nd property abuts wetlands, and has some invasive Buckthorn growing nearby. I want to eradicate the Buckthorn, but don't have any herbicides approved for use near wetlands, so I made a fumbling attempt at girdling one large specimen with a chisel! I'm thinking an axe would work better, but even an axe looks like it could do some serious damage if not used properly.

Butternut should do fine where you are, but it needs well drained soils, so where it is swampy, no. The alder is a nitrogen fixing species, so they are good "nurse" trees for others, so I would not be too agressive about eliminating them, but your butternut will need full sun to develop properly. Here in the mountains of western MD, the butternut is severely impacted by the canker disease, and it in the last 40 years or so it has been virtually eliminated by it.

--Spruce

Terrene:

I hope you are not just talking about the buckthorn. I read a discussion over on the Native Plants forum about that and saw that you participated there, so you must be well aware of all the different ideas/difficulties involved. Girdling buckthorn will just cause it to re-sprout from the base, almost as if you had cut it off, but weakening the roots a bit more than that does.

Anyway, to answer your basic question. With most trees I use an axe--a full sized 3 1/2 pound bit axe, usually with a 36" handle, but the length of the handle is not really important. I use an axe this size rather than a smaller hatchet because the weight helps make the job easier.

Then I don't usually cut a notch all around the tree, because with many species this will create a weak point for the tree to break in a storm and come down before it is dead, or before the upper parts have begun to rot. This can cause unintended damage to other trees. Of course, if your trees are fairly small, this should not be a big problem.

Anyway, I make downward cuts into the tree just deep enough to cut off the bark and just get into the sapwood a little. Basically I am stripping bark all around, maybe in a band a foot wide or so. If I do this in the spring and early summer when the tree is actively growing, I can, on many species of trees, loosen the bark and then peel it off. But you not only have to remove the bark, but also sever the cambium layer underneath. So when I am done cutting all the bark off, I go back around the tree and make sure that I have gone into the sapwood under the bark at least a small fraction of an inch. This cut into the sapwood does not have to be wide at all. Half an inch, even less, will ensure that the tree cannot bridge the gap and re-grow.

With a little practice, making this kind of downward semi-scraping cut will be easy. Just trust your instincts and practice a little. You don't take a full swing with the axe, but hold it with a "choked-up" grip and make cuts with an easy downward motion, with one hand near the bit, and the other back a ways on the handle to make complete control easy--no big swings.

Now with different kinds of trees in different situations I may girdle trees differently. Some kinds in some situations it is OK, or even better, to simply notch them, and you can do that with a chainsaw, but for most kinds of trees this is not best. For tree girdling I think a chainsaw is a waste of time and energy. It is easier to carry an axe than a chainsaw along with the gas and chain oil, etc.

With some trees with very thick sapwood, and trees that I want to die fairly quickly, I may strip the bark in a band 5 feet wide or more, or strip the bark in two bands--one near the base, and another as high up as is convenient. If it is a kind of tree that is very susceptible to breakage with many trees nearby that can be damaged, I will not cut a band around the tree at the same point, but cut a "wavy" band, that is higher in two places and lower in two other places. This way there will not be any one even point on the trunk where the tree dies first, creating a weak point as the tree begins to rot later. I learned to do this after some girdled trees broke and damaged adjacent trees. This method works well, and after using it I never had any more damage. In my woods the main tree I used this on was red maple, but I think it would be good to use with poplar and aspen, and some others, but my experience with those is limited.

Well, I have included a bit more here than maybe you need, but I also know that some others are reading this, and I am nothing, if not a person who tries to be helpful, espeically where trees are concerned.

--Spruce

Hi Spruce, great information, thank you! It is not TMI, I find it most interesting and others may find it useful too. I don't plan on girdling a large number of trees or any large trees, do you think a hatchet would be the best tool for the job?

As for the trees, mostly I am talking about Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica AND Frangula alnus, although the former is more tree-like in my experience) and Norway maples (smaller ones 4-6" diameter). But also, some small trees/shrubs like Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata), even the shrub Honeysuckles. Instead of cutting and applying herbicide, in some cases I would like the tree or large shrub to die in place and maintain habitat for wildlife, or to use as trellises for native vines.

It is possible that all the species I listed would resprout with simple girdling. It makes sense with Buckthorn, which will resprout quite abundantly when cut without using herbicide. Usually I cut and apply herbicide, but it would be nice to have effective ways of eradicating these invasives without using herbicide when possible (i.e. close to wetlands, or near my gardens, etc.).

Terrene:

If you are just doing small trees without much bark, I guess a hatchet could do the job, but in general I prefer a full sized axe, as I described. The extra weight of the head actually makes the job easier--the momentum and weight of the axe head can do most of the work once you get it moving, so you don't have to use any downward pressure with your arm after you contact the tree. If you do too many trees and use the wrong muscles, there is a risk of a kind of "tennis elbow" problem and that can take a long time to heal. I know!

As for the re-sprouting--generally trees that are girdled don't re-sprout. But if they are very young, or things like buckthorn, I think they may.

Here is what happens when you girdle a tree--most people don't understand this. When the bark is removed it keeps the tree from sending the nutrients created in the foliage downward to feed the roots. But the water and other nutrients can still go up the tree from the roots through the sapwood to the foliage. So when a tree is girdled, the tree will actually live until the shut-off of the nutrients from the crown of the tree to the roots kills the roots. Then the whole tree dies. So most trees, at least larger ones, don't re-sprout from the roots.

But with smaller trees and buckthorn, the severing of the bark and the cambium sometimes sends a signal of some kind for the tree to sprout below the point of the injury.

If, at the time a girdled tree tries to re-sprout--or after the sprouts have grown a bit, the whole system may be weakened a bit more than it would if a tree were simply cut off, and may be more susceptible to foliage applied herbicides such as roundup.

Girdling shrubs with multiple small trunks is something I would not attempt, and I think they would re-sprout. With much of what you have, a herbicide may be the answer. Or cutting off and then applying a herbicide as they try to re-grow.

--Spruce

Typically excellent advice from the Picea-man! Spruce, your words have got me thinking I need to start carrying a nice, sharp, double-bit ax with me in my sojourns. I've girdled with chain saw and even small folding pruning saws, but that ax really sounds like the ticket.

I would reinforce what Spruce has said regarding multi-stemmed shrubs resprouting: this is very definitely their nature. In fact, in ornamental horticulture, the best treatment of such plants to maintain them at a size you want and to keep such aesthetic attributes as fruit/flower production, stem color, etc. is the removal at the base of the oldest, most mature stems. This results in the formation of lots of new stems which typically yield the aforementioned desirable traits.

1pptz, I "think" I have a few butternut in my woods. I should know, of course, but having owned this property for not quite a year now, I am still learning what all is present there. The canker disease is rampant in WI as well, unfortunately, and is decimating this interesting native. If you can get a few going, more power to you. I'm fascinated by your accounts of your wooded property as it seems to be a far more southerly extension of the forest type I have. I think people in E. Wisconsin generally don't appreciate the uniqueness of the natural landscape around them. The whole area underlain by limestone is where cedar makes its' most common and most vigorous appearance. Good luck to you in your endeavors.

+oM