my property wants to be a black locust grove / how do i work with nature

Hi everyone, I was hoping to get some advice. I recently moved to a 1/2 acre suburban lot and am in the process of designing & planting an edible part-native hedge at a property boundary. The dilemma is that it feels like a sizeable part of my property wants to be a black locust grove. Before we moved in, a massive black locust at the property line was removed. I have one large black locust that I paid to have topped at ~20 ft, because it was near the house and dropping limbs during storms. There are a couple stumps nearby that, by all accounts, used to be black locust as well. Furthermore, two of those stumps are re-sprouting, each new tree 8-10 ft. tall already, and there are smaller saplings popping up on other parts of my property. I read that black locusts can spread by their roots and expand that way. I understand that they're nitrogen-fixing, pollinator friendly, quick-growing trees that generate valuable wood for burning (we have a stove). I read that you can wait till they're 8-10 years old then cut them down for firewood. You could coppice as well, though I know less about that technique. The problem is that I'd rather have a woodlot further back on the property, not this close to the house, and not where I want to plant food plants.

I have space for one English walnut, and was currently thinking of planting it near two re-sprouting stumps. I could keep those stumps trimmed, and, hopefully, once the walnut was large enough, it would shade out the black locust stumps and they wouldn't re-sprout as vigorously.

I want to work with nature, but letting nature do its thing would entail becoming the neighborhood's local black locust grove, which means there's a lot of plants I'm excited to grow but couldn't.

I should add that access to wood is not a huge concern here in suburban southeastern Pennsylvania. There's plenty of trees, many of them get cut (sometimes sad, a discussion for another time), and www.chipdrop.com allows you to get logs delivered for free from tree companies who thus avoid landfill fees. So I don't really need a whole grove of black locusts on my (relatively-speaking) small lot.

Thoughts / ideas / advice?

Much appreciated.

I’d use them for fence and trellis posts as well as firewood. Cutting them back willnalso cause a porportional amountof their root mass to die back, effectively injecting nitrogen rich compost into your soil. I am using them to support establishing fruit and nut trees this way. They will eventually get cut back as the canopy closes and space gets tighter.

Mixed silvo-pasture? Would livestock browse the regrowth?

My experience with locust is limited, but I see it sprouting from the existing root system at a fair distance from the current tree. I expect that controlling it would depend on limiting regrowth. Thin the area, to get more light, then regularly mow?

English walnut is also a great tree for killing off competition - it releases juglone, which as you may know, stunts the growth of most other plants. I would chop + drop the locust leaves as mulch for the young nut tree, perhaps selecting some longer rods for use in fencing or elsewhere in the garden, and expect the locusts to eventually lose vigour as the walnut grows and dominates.

in my experience, black locust doesn’t mind juglone. i’ve got a number of both (including decent sized ones of both species) living quite happily in close proximity.

It is good to read that you are trying to work with these trees.

A half-acre lot is enough land to give space for several garden beds and even space for some chickens if those are allowed.  A lot of fruits and vegetables can be had.

This thread has a list of what is possible for a half-acre, of course since you have a house the list would be reduced by half:

https://permies.com/t/168340/Acre-Food-Forest

Here are some threads on Black Locust that you or some other members might enjoy as these threads have excellent information:

https://permies.com/t/4078/Black-Locust

https://permies.com/t/142780/Black-Locust-Fast-growing-tree

greg mosser wrote:in my experience, black locust doesn’t mind juglone. i’ve got a number of both (including decent sized ones of both species) living quite happily in close proximity.

Ah, that's a shame. I'm the wrong side of the pond to have any first-hand experience with black locust. Juglone seems to be pretty universally disruptive with the flora over here.

yep. we have quite a few plants that co-evolved with black walnuts (which are supreme juglone producers), and thus don’t mind it. i even mulch my pawpaws with walnut hulls!

Thanks to all of you for your replies and perspectives. Okay, so walnut over black locusts to shade them out might work. And thanks for those threads on black locust. Heading over there now to read more.

Edible Acres has a good video on using it. They plant desired trees near the black locust to provide shade while they're young, then cut down the black locust after to allow the young trees to take over.

Malek - thank you, very much. That video was incredibly useful. He clearly has a wealth of experience with managing black locusts. I am now excited about the prospect of having these trees already naturally occurring in my landscape. The idea of chopping and dropping their growth to build nitrogen in the soil was not something I'd thought of. Will definitely be re-watching this video. Thanks again!