Posts Tagged ‘north loop’
Helping Trees
With the intense growth of summer beginning to wane just a little, we can better see into the woods to spot vines that are climbing our trees and uproot them. This week, we have been noticing them while walking Asher in the morning and pausing only briefly to tend to one or two near the trail. It tells me that the chore deserves a more focused trek through the woods to address any less obvious others away from the trail.
I’ve also been thinking about the young volunteer trees we discovered growing in our north loop field, and wanting to check on them. I did a little research on ways to best help young trees and found that nurturing root growth with water and mulch was a frequent suggestion. This gave me a fresh use for the composted manure stockpile I’ve been wanting to distribute.
After a recent turning of an old pile, I was thrilled to see the temperature had climbed back to over 150°F in the middle, indicating the microbial breakdown activity was far from complete.
The piles that are no longer cooking need to be distributed to make space for the daily new loads cleaned out of the paddocks. I decided to haul some up to use around the base of the young trees in the north loop field.
The first thing I discovered is that the poison ivy in that field is spreading farther and farther away from the spot where it was originally established. The second thing I found was that there are little oak trees showing up all over the place.
There are so many that I gave up trying to put mulch around all of them. Some trees will just have to fend for themselves. We get a fair amount of pressure from deer in that field, and I’ve known that young trees are all at risk of getting munched on, but since there are so many things growing there, I’m willing to sacrifice a few for occasional deer treats.
Among all the grasses and weeds growing around and over the volunteer oak trees popping up, there are also a few pine trees, many poplars, and two specific known cedar trees. I trudged back and forth many times in search of the smaller of the two cedars, using a huge pine tree as a reference.
It was hiding well, but when I finally came upon it, I was standing right where I thought it would be.
It doesn’t look much taller than it was last year when we first found it. It remains at risk of getting chomped. That might be enough to inspire me to offer it a little protection, since I’m fond of the added species variety it brings us.
Gotta protect the top as much as the roots down below!
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North Loop
I spent a fair amount of time in our north loop field yesterday morning and made an energizing discovery about how many young volunteer trees are thriving there.
For years after we moved here, we mowed down the tall growth in that section to the north of the driveway to control troublesome weeds from going to seed. It seemed like the prudent thing to do. Time has brought a change of heart for me. By not mowing the field anymore, we intend to nurture a future forest. There is still an issue with weeds to be dealt with but balancing that with embracing the appearance of new trees is a challenge we’ve decided to accept.
I was wading through the chest-high growth on a quest to pull vines that were starting to climb the existing pine trees in the area.
Almost immediately, I spotted a young sprout of oak leaves.
After uprooting any vines I could see, my mission shifted to clearing space around all of the young trees I could find.
There were an impressive number of poplar shoots that didn’t need any help in reaching sunlight. I found an elm. There are a variety of long and short needle pine trees showing up.
Of particular interest to me is the appearance of two sprouts of cedar trees, of which there are none anywhere in the surrounding area. I have no idea where these seeds traveled from.
When I finished my impromptu tree survey, I felt inspired for the future of this field. I also felt a mild trepidation over having visibly served up these gorgeous young trees as enticing nibbles for the resident deer herds that frequently bed down in the surrounding tall growth. Since the trees all showed up naturally, I’ve decided to let nature take its course, and if deer munch the tops off of some of these, so be it.
The final project I undertook in the north loop field was to mow a new viewing area where we’ll keep a couple of chairs for taking in the vista looking south from this high spot.
This idea came about from our animal sitter, John Bramble who mentioned that spot was a favorite for pausing to observe the view. He said it would be well-served to have a place to sit. I couldn’t agree more.
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Relative Something 