Dealing with invasives
When possible, instead of poison, I simply cover the stump with a pair of old planting pots nested to prevent light reaching the stump. This works, though it takes a lot longer.
This clump of bush honeysuckle at the base of the persimmon on the north part of the sycamore guild is too big for a pot. will have to use poison on fresh cuts.
These pots are covering bush honeysuckle trunks that will die from complete lack of light. Takes a lot longer than poison.
I'm still not sure if this is all vine that I cut. It is so firmly attached to the red cedar. Unlike the other one where the vine is clearly seperate and not as hairy.
I'm still not sure if this is all vine that I cut. It is so firmly attached to the red cedar. Unlike the other one where the vine is clearly seperate and not as hairy.
Made an aggressive cut into the fine part.
The winter creeper is bright green under the leaf cover. Pulled these up, a few square feet, and, after shaking dirt of roots, tossed on top so sun will hopefully dry out roots and kill them.
Must be some kind of chair or bench waiting in these largish bush honeysuckle trunks.
Looks like most of the natives in here are still ok.
What to do with bush honeysuckle trunks.
I've read that bush honeysuckle doesn't decompose well. I haven't studied it myself, but since it is an invader I'm willing to bet that the biochemistry in my local dirt doesn't have some of the bacteria that like to feed on these fairly stout and strong branches. Perhaps they can be fashioned into chairs or benches? Very few are straight, nearly every one has a pronounce curve, sometimes in mulitple directions. On the smaller stems and branches, the pitch is weak and can be drilled out easily. Some of the pencil sized stems are hollow. But for the most part, the biggers ones only have a very small center part that is weaker.
Cut down the big bush honeysuckles around the swing cedar and cleared them out. Some were quite large and I collected the larger ones and laid them out to consider what could be done with these very curvy stems.
The cedar directly to the east of the barn has a bunch of old farm equipment and junk that needs to be cleaned out. Want to do something with that nice curved oak branch.
The one in the front left is the high cedar. The one behind has a wintercreeper going after it.
On the south boundary fence, just south of the barn.
also near the south boundary
Almost all the bushes under it are bush honeysuckle and need to be removed and replaced with native species.
Tangle made by bush honeysuckle
Requires a lot of cutting just to get in close to the trunk of the cedar. Looking closely at the full resolution of this image, you can see a few other species coming up, but not many.
harvest of bush honeysuckle trunks
I'm positive these can be used to build something, just not sure what yet.
