Hedge/fedge on property line for copicing

I came home from work one day to find this in my driveway. Yay!!! One load was all red oak, another of pine and assorted brush. Both are very usable. Hunny found the electric company downing and chipping the trees under the powerlines.



I got to be happy for a couple of days. Then they got to our street, and I came home to this.



They cut down 17 of our trees, and we didn't even get the wood chips out of their massacre. Most of them were trees with brittle wood, and not great for firewood or other uses. They were told to cut anything down within 20 feet of the power lines. So they cut down one columnar oak of fifteen years whose branches were 15 feet away from the line, trunk 25 feet away. They did not do the normal 3 foot off the ground cuts. Much lower. several were ground down to below soil level and burried. Many of these trees I think cannot recover. Oh, and this one? They just left it alone. Notice that the branches SURROUND the power line?!?!?!?



The good news is that our area wants to be forested, so I can repopulate with more appropriate trees. We also did not have any fruit trees large enough to attract their attention this time. Well, we had a couple of wild cherries, and they damaged a lot of my wild elderberries. I fully expect the elderberris to recover-next year. Oh, there is one mulberry.  Also, I have not weeded all my maple seedlings from the garden yet. And I found my lost tree seeds!!

So we will be making a fedge. (AKA Food Hedge.) Only it also will include some hardwoods for future coppicing or pollarding for garden use or firewood.

A lot about coppicing is in this thread.
A lot about pallarding in this thread.

I'm sorry for the notable disruption to your property.  Its good though that at least some good could come of it, new types of trees you can plant instead, etc.

Coppice species for firewood. A Permies thread

My birthday present arrived this week

Best species for copicing. By Permaculture research institute.

Pecan is not included. Pecans are always popping up. Gotta transplant those guys early. Those taproots are something! One foot trees are hard to dig up! This year I watched for them. No transplanting yet, but I know what they look like while tiny now.

Anyone know how they coppice? I'd be happy to pollard as well. I have lots of extra edges, with a pond. Only two property lines have power lines. If you are shopping for land, look for power lines on only ONE property line. Damn troublesome.

Pecan as firewood by Firewood for life.com.

And an amazing amount of knowledge from a site about wood for lumber The wood database. They sell the site info in book form as well. The first link is about oak. Here's the pecan article so I can find it later.