What to do with "unused" or "Difficult" land

So! Let's say you have a rather large chunk of land, and there's a chunk of it that's unsuitable for traditional methods of polyculture & food forests.
Y'know, the whole 'fuit/nut Tree guild and 7 layers of useful plants'

Maybe you have a river that floods frequently, or a low-laying area that becomes a waterlogged floodplain after it rains.
Maybe you have some really dry, rocky areas that are too far away to comfortably irrigate by hand, and the rocks make it hard to earthscape.

Whatever the issue is, I just want to pop in with a reminder:
"Useful for Permaculture" is not limited to "compost, human-food, and livestock food."

Don't forget about non-edible habitats!  

Depending on how much land you're aiming for and WHY it's not working with you - consider creating a native ecosystem that isn't tree-focused.
You could decide to cart in a bunch of soil amendments, or cover the whole place with woodchips.....
Those are great techniques for a specific endgoal, but they're not the only option.

By picking an ecosystem of plants that thrives in the soil type you already have, you don't have to start with soil amendments or earthshaping.
Instead, you skip right to pulling out invasive species & seeding with desirable plants.  

Riparian, Flood-Prone, Boggy-after-rainfall areas

The Arundinaria Rivercane (the only native USA bamboo) once had miles and miles of riverside bamboo forests (called canebrakes) in the southeast USA, and it was an important habitat for hundreds of insects, birds, and small mammals. Several species of butterflies and moth can ONLY grow on rivercane, and there's a species of critically endangered pitcher plant that only grows in rivercane ecosystems... and it's only known to grow in TWO COUNTIES in alabama.

Not only are rivercane culms extremely useful as building material (native americans of the southeast used them frequently in weaving, basketry, and toolmaking of all sorts), they can be made into charcoal for biochar, or just fuel, the sprouts can be eaten, and the leaves are a fantastic source of compostable greens. The Canebrakes are a wonderful sheltered habitat for all sorts of game animals like pheasants and rabbits, the canes themselves are a nutritious fodder for ruminant livestock, and you get to help restore a part of America's nearly-lost ecosystems.  

Their roots prevent erosion better than a tree's, and a proper grove can filter out 99% of all nitrate pollution from the surrounding groundwater. It is an INCREDIBLE water-cleaning plant.

When colonialists arrived on our shores, there's descriptions of rivercanes 'as thick around as a man's thigh' and well over 30 feet tall - but many stands these days are so young that they barely top 10 feet.
You'd also be restoring habitat for migrating native songbirds and insects - About 97-98% of USA rivercane ecosystems have been lost entirely, due to the spread of farming and agriculture.  Restoring even a few square miles of rivercane, using rhizomes from different genetic strains would make a relatively big difference, compared to how few are left.

Uses for permaculture: Biodiversity. Conservation of species. Restoration of ecosystems. Cleaner groundwater. Reduces erosion. Composting, toolmaking, weaving (furniture and baskets!), edible for both humans and farm animals.  

If you have a riverside, or flood-prone area, rivercane is a GREAT permaculture option for the southeast united states.


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Dry, Rocky, Sandy, too-far-away-to-irrigate

Biodiverse grasslands and brushlands,  are also a wonderful addition to your property!
Grasslands which form unslightly mats in the winter, or put out massive blooms of scraggly, dusty flowers may not be the centerpiece for a traditional 'cottage aesthetic' garden, but Grasslands once covered about 40% of the United States. Only 5% of the original habitat remains. They were a huge source of food in the form of seeds & grains, insects, and foragable plants.

There are quite literally hundreds of native wildflowers, grasses, and forbs in the USA which are threatened, or endangered because of habitat loss.

There are many species of ground-nesting birds and pollinating insects whose grassland habitats were disturbed by cattle grazing, agriculture, and mowing. Creating another haven for them in their migration routes - or even a permanent place to live - means you're increasing local biodiversity - and therefore health - of your property's ecosystem.
Plant wildflowers! Plant seed-bearing grasses and forbs! Many herbal foragables thrive in sunny grasslands.
A few keystone plains plants include prarie crabapple, american plum, oak, deerberry, plains sunflower, broom snakeweed, black-eyed susan.... along with pollinator or host plants like milkvetch, ironweed, evening primrose, heliopsis, wingstem, aster, goldenrod and more.  Many grasslands had a few drought-hardy trees scattered throughout - just enough to cast a bit of shade here and there.


Any land you can set aside and intentionally seed with keystone native plant species - removing invasive species which would choke them out - you're doing yourself a huge benefit. Any time you can build up biodiversity; any crops you grow near that area will benefit.

Not only because you have more pollinating insects, but you'll also have the habitat for insect-eating songbirds, along with falcons, owls, foxes, and snakes which will happily feast on any rodents or squirrels trying to nibble your harvest.
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Conservation & Nationwide Biodiversity

You could even FOCUS on the conservation & genetic diversity to breed endangered plant species, and find some species that suit your 'difficult' piece of land.

The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) allows for people to collect cuttings and seeds from endangered plants on private property, to propagate, raise, and sell.
The ESA does have one requirement: sellers must apply for a $100 permit from the Fish & Wildlife Service if plants are sold across state lines.
This means that, if you can find a couple people selling endangered plants - you can create a thicket with different genetic strains & improve genetic diversity of a nearly-extinct species. Each new generation of cross-pollinated seeds with new genetic stock growing to adulthood means a stronger species hardiness, and a better ability for them to naturally seed out and spread when planted.

"Some 75 percent of endangered and threatened plant species occur to some extent on private lands, and so their conservation can be significantly affected by activities in those habitats. Private landowners and other citizens can have a positive impact on rare plant conservation, and we encourage them to contact their local Fish and Wildlife Service office, and their State Natural Heritage Program to learn more about what they can do to help." - Gavin Shire, Fish and Wildlife Service


To me at least, Permaculture is more than just food production for you & yours.  
It's about managing the land in such a way that your use of it is sustainable long-term... and even restorative.

=)

Do you have any 'Difficult' land that you don't know what to do with?
Let's brainstorm!

I have some I don't do anything with but walk on it once in a while. A lot of it is very difficult, as in hold onto something while traversing it, cause if you fall down, you might not stop till you hit the creek at the bottom.  But the trees use it, the coons, the possums, the deer, the coyotes, the owls and the turkeys all use it.  Difficult and "unused" in fact to many it might be considered "unusable", I like it that way.

What you're describing is what the manual might label "Zone 5" and it's an area that often doesn't get as much attention as it deserves. As you mention with canebrakes, even if you consider it Zone 5, that doesn't mean that you can't harvest some sustainably for human use - it just means that your focus is on supporting all our other friends, particularly amphibians which are in decline.

I think Mother Nature wouldn't consider that sort of land "unused" unless humans have done really nasty things to it.  Sometimes humans have done so at some point in the past and now she needs a helping hand to get things started, which is what you're suggesting by moving plants back to an ecosystem they originally populated. This is totally different from decrees which say humans "shouldn't interfere" - humans have been interfering for centuries, as have geological changes, weather pattern changes, and one could even say, outer space changes if you look at the effect of the impact of meteors! This doesn't mean that we have to use exclusively native plants either. We have many plants that have "naturalized" to my ecosystem that aren't actively harming native plants and in some places have been shown to actually help a damaged ecosystem recover.

I’m too far north for river cane, as far as I know. SW MI. It might have a shot on our site if the winters wouldn’t kill it.
Historic aerial photographs suggest our site was cleared in the first quarter of the 20th century, with an attempt at draining one quarter. Since those channels are still recognizable on the ground, but the woodland has returned in full force, I’m working with the assumption it was “too wet” for their version of farming.
One of our challenges is figuring out how to insinuate a productive, in human terms, ecosystem into what we have here. In a small portion of our twenty acres I’ll be working to grow a relatively conventional garden, but for the rest, I’m all about working within the excessively wet woodland that we found when we arrived.

Peter Ellis wrote: In a small portion of our twenty acres I’ll be working to grow a relatively conventional garden, but for the rest, I’m all about working within the excessively wet woodland that we found when we arrived.

Have you researched "chinampas"? Is your land wet enough that digging areas down and using that to build other areas higher, would allow for a greater variety of species? Humans often seem to think, "too wet" is a problem, rather than a solution!

Toko Aakster wrote:
It's about managing the land in such a way that your use of it is sustainable long-term... and even restorative.

=)  

Thankyou for this lovely and thoughtful post. I like the sound of rivercane. I live in the UK and had never heard of it. I am wondering if some UK/EU folks have some good examples. We have lost a huge amount of our wetlands here - they are not even wet anymore. If someone has wet areas I can think of reeds and bulrushes for wet areas. Actually there are a lot of wetland plants that are edible as well.
The driest and dustiest areas are the farmed areas where the soil has died.
Your post has certainly given me food for thought.

This would be ideal if land was owned by watersheds.
Then we could model zone 5 after the book.

But when you get to purchase a small land that should be all of it in zone 5 (cause it was cheap), you want a profit for yourself, not for critters, not for the benefit of the people down the stream.

Anyways, that's a good reminder for those with the luck of having a little of everything, that even though zone 5 takes care of itself, we can still help it to evolve faster.

Hi Toko,
thanks a lot for your post, so very interesting and important!
Even if you have only a very small plot, a little unused, unkempt and undisturbed spot for wildlife is so important! It might be only small but it adds up if more people adhered to it.

Two thoughts:
"There are many species of ground-nesting birds and pollinating insects whose grassland habitats were disturbed by cattle grazing, agriculture, and mowing."
Although intense cattle grazing may disturb some species it is indeed necessary for grassland to have some grazing animals. Probably there were bisons (buffalos) in earlier times who played a very important role in the existence of grassland: their dung provided fertility and food / shelter for specialized insects and birds, the constant clipping of patches favoured certain grasses and provoked other plants to grow in low rosettes, they eliminated bushes and tree saplings and their trampling hooves opened the ground for seedlings and created temporary ponds for amphibians.
If we want to maintain grassland habitats we either have to interfere and mow regularly or introduce grazing animals again. Here in Europe this is done with goats, certain cow races, horses or water buffalos. Without these we would soon have succession of bushland and then forests.
I am involved in projects that include mowing, tree removal and introduction of robust cow races to maintain a habitat for the very endangered lapwing and similar ground-breeding birds.

"This means that, if you can find a couple people selling endangered plants - you can create a thicket with different genetic strains & improve genetic diversity of a nearly-extinct species. Each new generation of cross-pollinated seeds with new genetic stock growing to adulthood means a stronger species hardiness, and a better ability for them to naturally seed out and spread when planted."
If possible, try to find local seeds. While it might make sense for vegetables to have a genetic variety it can be counterproductive for wild flowers etc. as the co-dependance of insects is sometimes so specific that a butterfly cannot use a different genetic strain than the one it co-evolved with over millions of years.
I am aware that you are talking about nearly-extinct species but then also try to source from your area only.

I hope many people think about those incentives and start looking at those areas with different eyes.
In my Facebook feed I am getting more and more posts with a similar vibe (wild-life friendly gardens, no-lawn gardens) etc. from US organizations which makes me happy. In former times I only saw those from European organizations. We need a big shift of mindsets all over the world!

I have several acres I deliberately keep unused to me. About once a year or so I visit the area and pick up trash that has blown on to it.  There is a creek that runs though it and a few coyote dens.   There are areas where the deer have bedded down.   My big farmer neighbor has some adjoining land that he leaves alone as well.  He has recently posted his land “ no hunting”, so we seem to have set up a small wildlife preserve without actually discussing it with one another.   I suspect there is about 7 or 8 acres in all.

While I do not know, I feel that back in the olden days' folks put animals on "unused" or "difficult" land.

I have about 39 acres of unused land which is only used by animals.

Of course, my animals are called wildlife.

This land is also occupied by all sorts of native plants and grasses.

Acorns, prickly pear pads, and fruit, agarita berries, thistle to name a few.

Observation is one of the first principles of permaculture.

Observation will help with what to do with unused or difficult land.  What is already growing there that could possibly be edible?  What animals live there that could possibly be for food?

Lisa Sture wrote:

Toko Aakster wrote:
It's about managing the land in such a way that your use of it is sustainable long-term... and even restorative.

=)  

Thankyou for this lovely and thoughtful post. I like the sound of rivercane. I live in the UK and had never heard of it. I am wondering if some UK/EU folks have some good examples. We have lost a huge amount of our wetlands here - they are not even wet anymore. If someone has wet areas I can think of reeds and bulrushes for wet areas. Actually there are a lot of wetland plants that are edible as well.
The driest and dustiest areas are the farmed areas where the soil has died.
Your post has certainly given me food for thought.

There are comparable plants in most places - but a significant issue is that they do tend to proliferate, making them invasive.  

The UK considers Phragmites australis a native reed, though it is acknowledged as invasive; some other sources give a different origin from central/southern Asia originally, but it's common enough worldwide now. Phragmites species are traditionally used for thatching in the UK and elsewhere, and work great as a thatching material.
The Strawbale Studio folks are very careful not to transport seeds when they use it for thatching demonstrations.  Many Midwestern states are publishing information about how to get rid of it, how to distinguish it from the native Midwestern US version it is rapidly displacing. etc.
Phragmites are being credited with mitigating storm surge in the Missisippi delta, with uptaking excess nutrients, pulling down carbon, etc. in other research.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/World-map-showing-the-distribution-of-Phragmites-australis-over-the-continents-Green_fig1_259103379

I'm often tempted to support the traditional craft materials that I might want to harvest.  Yet in todays society with little time for traditional crafts, those plants may not be a good fit for a balanced, varied "zone 5." River grasses, reeds, and other prolific plants that can handle repeated harvesting for crafts do unfortunately also tend to be invasive - they are simply fecund, and that can become a mixed blessing (a solution looking for a problem becomes a problem...).

Even if they're locally native, not everyone is going to be happy about seeing them spreading everywhere:
https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/invasive-rushes-spreading-in-upland-farm-fields


Here's one site that shows many UK species for both wet and dry wildlife areas.

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/grasses-sedges-and-rushes/common-reed

You might want to find local experts for your specific area, since there's so much variety in soils and plants.  A nearly identical site for the London wildlife trust: https://www.wildlondon.org.uk/wildlife-explorer/grasses-sedges-and-rushes

Natural doesn't mean non-toxic, and native is not a guarantee that a plant is non-invasive or cooperative with other native species.  I'll put an old favorite story about English ivy down below, for those who haven't heard it here before.

I spent a few years teaching people to weave baskets from English ivy, usually harvested on site - and then realized that when you teach people to use and love and harvest a plant, you don't get less of it - you get more, if they have any common sense.  They get fond of it, and like to see it around, and notice if it's missing.  So I started incorporating other common, less-invasive plants that are also great for weaving simple baskets, and encouraged people to 'graduate' from ivy if they ever had the lovely problem of ivy-free landscaping.  The wild forage we used to harvest mostly didn't get exterminated by the people who ate and used it - very often, draining the marshes or enclosing the grazing meadows was a way of driving those people out, and taking over the land for an entirely different form of production.  There are a few exceptions for rare medicinal plants of great value, but by and large the plants and animals that humans find most useful also tend to get rewarded by being spread, cultivated, and protected.

Not all grasses and reeds are prolific enough to tolerate extensive harvesting.  The traditional basketry and thatch plants tend to be among the more prolific plants in an area.  If you don't have a robust community of thatchers or weavers, maybe look at coddling some of the less-aggressive meadow plants, as a special pet, or finding out what sorts of insects and small animals are endangered in your area.  A butterfly garden or songbird garden could be exquisite.  Hedgerows have been a subject of conservation interest, as they often preserve last remnants of former forest expanses.

There sure are some beautiful plants out there for 'waste' land.  Sometimes you can do better by getting a bucket of mud from a 'healthy' pond or marsh than by all the careful plant ID and expert advice.

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/grasses-sedges-and-rushes

...


The English Ivy story:

As with English ivy: it's terribly invasive here, and tends to cause our skinny deciduous trees to either die from being shaded out, or fall down due to having unaccustomed windage during winter storms when the soft soils are sodden.  It also tends to out-grow our skinny coniferous trees.  It is highly recommended to cut a foot-wide gap all the way around the tree so the stems die back, which reduces the amount of it seeding way up high; and on the ground, parties of volunteers and park staff will do "ivy rolls" where great mats of it are uprooted to make room for other plants.  This is only practical where naturalists roughly outnumber the green spaces; in other areas, you just try to keep it from climbing everything in sight (it tends to seed from heights, so keeping it low also tends to confine the infestation instead of birds spreading it to new places).

So one day I called my English farmer great-uncle to see what kept it under control in England.  As it turned out, he had recently taken a semi-retirement from farming, letting the farm rest as part of an environmental restoration program, so he was having this conversation a lot.  Generally he was favorable to the program, but lamented the environmental students telling him not to cut back the English ivy because it is native and doesn't kill the trees ... "But it does kill the trees," he said with resignation.  

Reflecting on all the holidays where ivy is peeled up, used to decorate, and then thrown on the fire - at least one per quarter of the year, more counting weddings - I concluded that the natural predator to keep English ivy in check is the English peasant.  Or in my uncle's case, persistent gentleman farmer.

Yours,
Erica W