Day 3

I completed the third day of removing invasive vegetation from one of the fields at the Skaneateles Conservation Area.  I've encountered European buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica), Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora), and some grape vines.  The first three of these are non-indigenous species that provide very little support for wildlife and severely inhibit the growth of native vegetation.  The grape vines are probably native to this region and do provide food for wildlife, but also prevent native trees from taking hold.  In some places it seems like these four invasives team up to strangle the native trees, or to just shade out an area so nothing else can grow.

Brush pile as of this morning, looking toward the south-west.

 My initial plan was to start by first cutting down any invasives impinging on the existing hiking trails, and then to gradually extend the invasive-free zones around the trails until (far into the future) no undesirable alien vegetation could be seen from the trails.  Then (in my next life) I could start on the areas away from the trails.

Clearing invasives from the near the trails would help reduce trail maintenance time, since these are generally the faster-growing plants and in warm sunny weather, the honeysuckle in particular seems to fill in any empty space within days of being trimmed.

The pink area is about where I've cleared so far.  The yellow ellipse is the brush pile location.

But, because of the cold windy weather and the wet muddy trails, so far I've stuck to a single sunny and relatively dry area which is fairly sheltered from the wind.  It's probably not a good idea to trudge back and forth dragging trees on muddy trails.  This area has mainly small buckthorn trees (ranging from 1 to 4 inches in diameter) and a smaller number of honeysuckle bushes.  But, it usually takes longer to cut down a honeysuckle bush because of  the large number of stems.

Tell-tale yellow-orange buckthorn stump.

 I try to positively identify every individual before I cut it down, hoping that it's really an upright citizen, but it seldom is.  Even so. in the case of the buckthorns, it's a relief to see the orange ring on stump, letting me know that I didn't execute the wrong individual.

Multiflora rose hips, still holding on in late March. 

So, what's left after clearing out these four invasives. Well, not a whole lot. Of course, the grasses have not started to come up yet, but there are a number of unidentifiable saplings, which have been browsed upon beyond recognition (by me anyway). In fact that could be used as plant ID criterion #1. If nothing has chewed on it, it's bad: cut it down. Otherwise, let the critters finish it off.

Buckthorn branch.

What I Learned Today

I learned that though these are loppers:

This is a lopper:

Loppers aren't like scissors or pliers.  A pair of loppers is actually 2 of them, which makes a lot more sense.  What good is one scissor or one plier anyway?

I first bought an Ace compound anvil lopper a year or 2 ago at Ace Hardware (appropriately).  It's the one on the lower left in the top set of pictures.  It's still in good shape, but the arms are getting a little close together when the jaws are closed all the way.  I think it's because I tried to bite off too many large-diameter dead buckthorn branches.  Live branches close to 2-inches in diameter can be cut with this thing, but it's better to cut dead branches that big with a bow saw or just snap them off if you can.

So late this summer I bought a Corona lopper at another hardware store and found that these 2 loppers are very similar, apparently made from mostly identical parts, down to the color of the fiberglass handles. One exception is the anvil, which has an overhanging nose-like appendage on the Ace lopper (to keep branches from sliding out as they are lopped).  This feature helps a little on larger branches, but it gets in the way a bit when biting away at a honeysuckle stump.  Another difference is the black handle-cushions, which as you can see on my 2-year old Ace lopper are still in good shape, but on the newer Corona lopper the much softer sponge-like foam started to get torn up by thorns and twigs right away, one so badly that I ended up ripping it off as you can see in the lower right photo.  But that's mainly a cosmetic problem.  I've considered putting some handlebar tape on it to spruce it back up.

So, I wouldn't recommend one of these loppers over the other,  but I would recommend using a good heavy-duty compound anvil lopper instead of a bypass lopper (the kind with the scissor action).

 30-inch Bow Saw

I was about to recommend this 30-inch bow saw that I bought from Traditional Woodworker in Texas, but it appears that they just removed it from their web site's list of bow saws.  (They must have made an exclusivity deal with Bahco.)  This was a no-name saw from Italy, and it's quite stiff.  I've found that proper tension on the blade is important.  I have an older more flexible 30-inch saw that is really hard to use, even with a new blade, because the blade can curve within the saw cut, causing it to bind.

One of my smaller bow saws has a tension adjustment, so based on my experience with my flimsy old 30-inch saw, I cranked the tension up real high, but found that too much tension also causes a binding problem when the saw is not held parallel to the cut, as is often necessary when working between branches.  That saw also has a hand grip and protector, to prevent smashed knuckles I guess.  I didn't find that useful at all.  I use different hand positions on the saw depending on my angle to the tree I'm cutting, so the grip and protector just got in the way.  In fact, since I can use a lopper on many branches, much if not most of my cutting is done at the base of the tree, trying to leave as little stump as possible.  There I usually use two hands: one on the bend of the frame, and one where the blade attaches to the frame.  I often start out actually holding the blade itself so that I can twist it to control the angle of the cut (wearing leather gloves of course).

 

Those are just observations from my short personal experience with bow saws and loppers.

To Hell with Honeysuckle

I just got driven in by a thunderstorm from pulling up some of the smaller honeysuckle bushes from the wet soil.  Much of the honeysuckle in the more shaded areas (notably the areas that had the most buckthorn) can be pulled out by hand, especially when the soil is wet.  Although it could be found most everywhere in our woods, honeysuckle was established best on the edges where it could get sunlight.  The interior plants contained a lot of dead wood and many could be pulled up by hand, even in dry weather.

A lesson that I finally learned working around honeysuckle is to wear long pants.  Although it doesn't have thorns like the buckthorn does, the stems, especially the dead ones, are very brittle and can make pin-cushions (or punji-stick-cushions) of your legs, especially when you climb up on the brush pile to stomp it down.  Long pants also provide less area for poison ivy exposure.

Last week I got one of these toys: a Red Dragon BP 223 SVC 100,000 BTU Weed Dragon Back Pack Propane Vapor Torch Kit With Squeeze Valve.  I knew from experience that both the honeysuckle and buckthorn sprout right back up from the stumps within days, with nice healthy bright green leaves.  I was considering treating the stumps with chemicals late in the fall as prescribed as the most effective way of dealing with the unpullable stumps, but I decided that this flame thrower would be more fun and ecologically friendly, as long a I don't burn down the neighborhood.  I had tried a small plumber's soldering torch on a few stumps, but that only seemed slow the regrowth down a little.  (No, the small plumber was not named Mario.)

After giving this bigger torch a try, I realized that I would need to create a good burning strategy.  Wandering around the woods on a damp drizzly morning, hitting each spot where I spotted invasive plants sticking up was not going to be healthy for me or the woods, especially near areas with visible poison ivy.  I need to get all of the pullable stuff up first -- it's not always clear by looking at a plant whether it can be pulled by hand, and many of the bad guys are near seedlings of more desirable trees that I would like to protect if possible.  This thing puts out a lot of heat, and I don't know what damage it may do to nearby vegetation, even if it doesn't go up in smoke.

 

Buckthorn resprouting from stump soon after cutting.

They sell a 500,000 BTU version of this torch.  It's hard to imagine the benefit of that much more heat.