Morgan Bun

You are all so full of insight! Thank you!

I’m attaching the best picture I have of the “trash trees”. They are very skinny (only inches thick at the thickest parts), very tall (20-25ft) and very dense (you can’t walk between the trees through this area).

In the photo you sort of get a picture of how dense they are. You can also catch a glimpse of a few of our larger hardwoods. I definitely want to clear as few trees as possible! We are tree people! We were just under the impression that these trees would never be able to be healthy/grow large. Like I said, we are newbies and just trying to gather facts and wisdom before making a decision! If anyone knows that type of trees these are, that would be helpful too!

(I’ll post a better picture of this specific area once we get back out there. This isn’t a great photo, but it’s the closest I have to showing what the area looks like)

The plan right now is to cut it back so that is can be used to graze the animals in rotation. We are talking about 8-10 acres that need to be cleared (keeping the handful of hardwoods though)

Eventually, we may want to use it for crops, but that’s probably a minimum of 5 years away! I’ll text my husband — he’s the one with the photos! I’ll post those once I have them.

Last weekend, we rented a self-propelled brush hog (the type that’s a glorified push mower). Using that I was able to clear probably 2-3 acres of the woody weeds. (And I have the blisters to prove it!) our neighbor came over with his pull behind brush cutter and WOW in about 30 minutes made some the same amount of progress that I made over 1.5 days! He is the one that said that he thinks the “trash trees” are too thick in diameter for anyone to get back there with a brush hog and too dense for it to make sense to try doing it with a chainsaw.

Hello, all!

My husband and I just purchased our land last weekend! Hooray! While we will not be able to live out there until probably this time next year, we want to begin healing and clearing our land as quickly as possible.

Half of the land is heavily wooded and the other half is pasture with a few hardwoods throughout. The pasture is extremely overgrown with “trash trees” (our neighbors term), greenbrier, poison ivy and some very tall, woody weeds that I don’t know the name of.

We want to begin clearing the land now, but another concern of ours is that the soil appears to be very unhealthy. We’ve been advised that some of the “trash trees” (and shrubs) are so dense that the only way to clear them is to bulldoze the area. From what I’ve read, it seems like that would greatly disrupt the soil and potentially cause more of a problem that we already have.

Not being an expert and not knowing my options, I stumbled upon this site and am hopeful y’all can share some wisdom! (By the way, our next step is to work with our local ag extension to determine the exact state of our soil around the property.)

Any insight appreciated,
Morgan