At our Canon
City, CO homestead, we have about 8 sloping, usable acres, and it is marginal. The remaining 29 acres are rock outcroppings, rocky hillsides and overgrown almost wetland. So, zone 5 stuff.
Within that 8 usable acres are a whole lot of cholla and rubber rabbitbrush. I was told this is typical of overgrazed western areas. (After 3 years of no horses grazing, we have seen quite a rebound in the grasses, which was very surprising.) I can't decide how much, if any, of these plants to remove for swaling and food forest establishment.
I know that some animals can use rabbitbrush as a winter browse, but we have very few
deer pass through, as we are next to a huge BLM tract near Cactus Mountain where they seem to prefer to hang out. We do have a small rabbit population that seems to use the rabbitbrush as a corridor of cover to move across the
land. I don't want to deprive them of needed cover, but I'd really like to have the space for planting. And I am having trouble finding any information on the value of cholla (ours is tree or chainlink or a some cross thereof) to animals.
The cholla is painful for us and our dogs to get stuck with - it almost seems to leap out at us - and if it doesn't really serve anyone, I'd like to see it gone. The rabbitbrush is extremely dense and covers a lot of ground. All the
local people advocate eradication of both on private lands, but they're not
permaculture minded. It's all about grazing for them. Please chime in if you can shed some light on this for me. Thanks-
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