Andrew Gates

that's great thanks for your help

yep its official, its illegal to plant black locust and acacia dealbata in portugal (and a big list of other acacia's too)

So now I'm looking for other species that are:
Fast growing
Coppicable for firewood/polewood (preferably with long lasting poles)
Nitrogen fixing and suitable for chop and drop
Drought tolerant/frost tolerant
Preferably easy (and fast) to grow from seed/cuttings

any suggestions? just had the rug pulled out from under my feet today

Thanks for the info.

I'm in more than a slight rethink on species choices today after discovering that Portuguese law classifies Black Locust and Acacia Dealbata as invasive.... I think its against the law to plant them but waiting on finding out for sure

Controlling through burning isn't really an option here, you can rake and pile stuff from the floor and burn in a bonfire but only for certain months of the year. Wildfire is a big problem here, when it goes it really goes, on a windy day the fire can travel really really quickly. Ash and burning particles blown through the air start more and more fires significant distances from the original point, thus travelling over motorways, firebreaks and anything else that you would hope would contain it. There was a fire this year already that ripped through central Portugal, travelling 20km from its starting point and taking out large chunks of woodland over the couple of days that it was burning. A lot of the problem is that the woods here are commercially farmed eucalyptus and pine, bare ground beneath save for dry shed eucalyptus bark and pine cones/needles (perfect fire starting material!). I'm guessing that a damper site with green ground covers would be much better protected, and the cork oak that has self-seeded survives fire when it comes through. Its definitely a factor at play in species consideration and placement though!

yeah that makes sense.... those extra NF's would have to be non-coppicable to be able to cut them out eventually then would they?

Devon the second link in your original post is a copy of the first... is there any chance you could repost the link please? I was on a similar hunt for uses of bindweed last week but didn't come up with much, even with regard to alkaloid content.

That's fantastic help guys thanks alot, that's exactly the information and reassurance I was looking for!

Once the design is together and the the swales in place how would you suggest us establishing the trees/ground covers? At the moment I'm thinking of spot mulching around the trees, broadcast sowing ground cover plants and then giving a rough weeding occasionally to take out anything thats overtaking the ground covers and that may cause any problems - is that a practical method or is there a better way?

I'm afraid you'll have to excuse my ignorance, I'm totally new to researching this.

We're in Central Portugal and have a couple of acres of land situated a few hundred metres down the road from our house and gardens. At the moment it's pretty much bare except for a bit of gorse and some cork oak seedlings that are springing up here and there, plus a small amount of brambles beginning to come. When we bought it a couple of years ago it was a recently felled and cleared pine forest, it had had to be removed due to being rife with a pine tree insect that rips through pine forests in Portugal. The soil is poor after decades of monoculture pine cropping. It has only a small supply of water and is on a south west facing slope with roadway and top and a small olive grove and stream at the bottom. The site is long and relatively thin and is surrounded by badly maintained eucalyptus which makes for a fire risk on all sides. We have pretty heavy rainfall roughly November to April (about 100cm of rain) and are almost completely dry and hot May through to October. We get mild frosts but no snow or ice.

We are thinking to use the land to provide firewood and polewood, and possibly some nut crop.

Black Locust sounds like a great species to have there for these purposes, and I'm wondering about the viability of interspersing sweet chestnut, walnut, or olive (or a combination) throughout - possibly growing some vines underneath. As for ground covers I really don't know. The situation isn't really suitable for livestock of any kind to be kept there.

In looking around the net for information I'm struggling to find good information for a total beginner like myself regarding how we go about starting, and I wonder if you kind people might be able to give me some good and practical suggestions of how to proceed? Could we combine some or all of these species? What kind of planting distances? Any ideas for ground covers and how to go about establishing them (and the trees)? Any ideas for reducing our fire risk somewhat? Should we put swales at intervals down the hillside as we go?

Thanks for the info... love the name burra maluca

A Portuguese friend of mine told me a couple of days ago that he can source sweet chestnut and oak here too, which is probably preferable. Don't know about the difference in cost though, I imagine it could become quite costly...

I'm pretty sure that it's Eucalyptus Globulus.... its grown here for the paper industry

Hi all

We're in Portugal getting slowly setup, sorted and learning.

At the moment I'm dreaming of a Simon Dale-esque roundwood framed, earth sheltered house and I'm wondering about the possibility of using eucalyptus to build with (our location in Central Portugal is covered in the stuff). Does anyone know if eucalyptus is viable for something like this? I'm having trouble finding the info.

Thanks

Andy