Weeding the Forest
Sep 25th, 2008
The forest where Big Nerd Ranch will be built is quite lovely. It is filled with White Oak, Hickory, Sweet Gum, Red Maple, Dogwood, Tulip Poplar, and Ironwood trees. There are Christmas and Broad Beech ferns. There is at least one turtle.
I know these things because Fulton County arborist Leah Pine wandered around the land with me today. The main purpose of her visit was to identify invasive, non-native species (so I can kill them), but she generously took the time to identify many of the native plants for the city boy.
She also found the turtle.
I have infestations of two non-native species. The first is Privet. Privet would be a pleasant shrub if it didn’t reproduce so quickly. Or, if it were easier to kill. Thus far, I’ve been hacking it apart with a machete and painting the stalks with a herbicide.
The machete (mine is a Gerber Brush Thinner) is a gratifying tool — you get serious results from a little bit of effort. I’ve been using it on Poison Ivy, Muscadine vines, and the Privet. The trick, I’ve found, is to wear a work glove with a long cuff on my wielding hand. Otherwise, my forearm is pretty scratched up by the end of the day.
The other invasive plant on the land is a grass called Nepalese Browntop
I think some combination of mowing, herbicide, and reseeding might slow the spread. (I find it a little ironic that being a good ecological citizen involves so much killing.)
I would like one more shade tree in the meadow. Ms. Pine made several recommendations: White Oak, Post Oak, Shumard Oak, Chestnut Oak or some of the new disease-resistent Elms or Chestnuts.
Update: For you botany junkies out there, here is the complete report from Ms. Pine:
The site is generally upland rocky woods, characterized by such understory trees as: sourwood (Oxydendron arboreum) and dogwood (Cornus florida) and canopy trees such as: sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), red maple (Acer rubrum), hickory (Carya spp.), white oak (Quercus alba), southern red oak (Quercus falcata); and shrubs such as beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), sparkleberry (Vaccinium arboreum) and other blueberry species, possibly deerberry (Vaccinium stamineum) or Elliott’s blueberry (Vaccinium elliottii).
The evergreen conifer, Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is found at the woodland edge and as understory saplings. We also found one mulberry (Morus rubra), which—although native—can be almost invasive in some areas of Atlanta, likely because it hybridizes with nonnatives.
The thorny tree that had been removed was black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia). There were a few ornamental shrubs, likely left from the earlier homeowners: crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica), butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii), and a few Japanese azaleas (Rhododendron spp.).
Off a gravel parking pad, the site drops steeply to the north to a perennial stream. Although the site appears to be undisturbed mature hardwood forest, there were not many specimen-size trees. I am guessing that at some time, the larger trees were timbered. In addition to the above trees, as the slope becomes progressively more mesic, we found tulip poplar (Lirodendron tulipfera), ironwood (Carpinus canadensis), beech (Fagus grandifolia), and deciduous magnolia, probably cucumber magnolia (Magnolia acuminata).
As for the shrub and ground layer, there is some pawpaw (Asimina triloba) and little brown jug (Hexastylis arifolia) and a great deal of Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichiodes), and on the lower slope, broad beech fern (Phegopteris hexagonoptera). The vines are mostly muscadine (Vitis rotundifolia) and climbing hydrangea (Decumaria barbara). I found one plant of hepatica (Hepatica nobilis) and one probable Jack in the pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum). Given the general richness of north-facing slopes, there are (I hope) more of these.
I did not see any privet (Ligustrum sinense)—one of the worst exotic invasives—in the stream area although there was some Nepalese browntop (Microstegium vimeneum). Privet and browntop was mostly found at the meadow edges in the upland area and most of the privet had been eaten or cut almost to the ground.
Meadow areas contained these grasses: purple top (Tridens flavus), splitbeard bluestem (Andropogon ternarius), and broomsedge (Andropogon virginicus), and along the road, the shrub sumac (Rhus spp.) Native ornamental perennials goldenrod (Solidago spp.) and blazing star, probably Liatris aspera, were also prevalent. Plumegrass (Erianthus giganteus) can be found at the woodland edge as well.
In order to maintain this meadow, which may have an underlying turf grass (Centipede), it is best to mow once yearly in late winter, around February.
There were also black walnuts (Juglans nigra), red maple, pine (Pinus taeda), and water oak (Quercus nigra) in the open areas. Suggestions for another canopy tree in this area: white oak (Quercus rubra), post oak (Quercus stellata), shumard oak (Quercus shumardii), chestnut oak (Quercus prinus), “Princeton” American elm (Ulmus americanus “Princeton” or other disease-resistant variety); American chestnut (Castanea dentata)—one of research crosses from American Chestnut foundation. Plant 2” cal. tree or smaller in November.
So question…
Have you given any thought, once the new ranch is finished, to the idea of sysadmin bootcamps? The obvious thought is ACSA stuff, and that’s nice, but it’s the highest level. There’s a…dearth of fundamental instruction for Mac sysadmins. So you get people trying to run labs, but they don’t really know what’s going on once you get too far below “Turn on AFP”.
An ACSA boot camp would be the bigger draw, and could be used to suss out interest in say, security bootcamps, networking fundamental bootcamps, etc.
email me, maybe we can talk
We need to have Ms. Pine (what a perfect name for a Georgia arborist) come by our house and recommend a replacement tree for the white oak—planted by Trees Atlanta in 1996 for the Olympics—that was wiped out by a much larger white oak that took out about a third of our Virginia Highland home in mid-May. (shown here: http://tinyurl.com/4fwfca ) We’re only now finishing up the rebuild—a summer’s worth of work dealing with contractors, insurance people, dust, heat, rain. Darned trees. Be careful where they’ll sit in relation to your fine new construction. But we want to put a nice one back where the innocent bystander-oak was.
Congratulations on your project to build the place you’ve always wanted. Takes all kinds of courage and determination…but it’s a good idea, sounds like you’re doing it in a good way…when you have that going for you, heck, why not? Filling classrooms with folks learning Cocoa sounds like a very cool use of that part of Fulton County.
And please feel free to use my lame joke from when we’re walking in the woods and my wife spots some privet: “Ah, privet property.”
If you’re going to plant new oak trees, you might look into getting them “infected” with truffle spores first. Truffles are mushrooms that grow beneath the soil’s surface in a symbiotic relationship with oak trees (among others). Truffles help your trees grow better, taste fantastic, and are worth a fortune. They are the kind of unique, on-site ingredient that can add a unique culinary flair to your future inn’s cuisine.
Garland Truffles is probably your nearest source of information and seedlings:
http://www.garlandtruffles.com/trufflegrowingbasics.html
The oak species that Garland offers may not be native to Georgia, but then neither are truffles nor the other species that you are likely to grow in your inn’s “kitchen garden” (e.g., potatoes originated in South America, carrots in Afghanistan, lettuce in Turkey, peaches in China, etc.). Can’t we all just get along?