Christine Panus

Re the chance of willow sprouting, could I cover it with clear plastic until end of August and solarize it? I wish I could redo the piles, but I had back surgery about 9 months ago because apparently I broke my back as a child and didn't realize it.

I keep telling myself I have an ugly mess in my yard, which the HOA will hate, but no one is dead and these trees were scary. They had 2 come down in unexpected ways and they are pros. I am sure there are places these trees are appropriate for, but they were scary in my yard.

Exactly my concern with the wood pile (that I'm not going to have enough contact). T quehey just kind of threw them all together so I can't really restack them. Definitely could throw the wood chips in with it. That's a great idea! I'd love to get some soil in there and I'm planning on a general call out for grass and such. I thought coffee grounds might also be good for added nitrogen and we have a Starbucks nearby that uses garbage bags to hand them out so that might work...

If we could restack it we would. But the pieces are huge... What kind of vendor would help restack wood? We definitely couldn't do it ourselves. Some of them are hundreds of pounds. It's totally random... two logs that look mostly the same on the outside may be light as a feather or solid as a rock. Some logs have had so many carpenter bees through them that they're almost hollow or have housed termites or ants or something to and they are not structurally dense at all.

I don't care about crops or yields on these, at least not in the short term (next several years)... I mostly care about stability,  native biodiversity, and it not falling and hurting anyone.

We are hoping to create keyhole beds around the perimeter of the yard. That is where I hope to plant food and such. I wouldn't mind a few fruit trees between the first and second piles of wood.

All I need for the wood is to cover it, and have it be palatable to the neighbors and beneficial to the native species that are losing habitat around here.

Thanks for all the answers so far. I'm making a list of the plants I can use next year and the things to ask for in the near term.

Do I just stuff every crevasse I can find with any brown or green matter I can access? Should I try to put in worm tubes?

Thanks!
Christine

This is epic! Thank you so much! I will start hunting scrap immediately! I'm excited to do what I can to get native habitat back in our little piece of the world.

We bought a property that had about 100 austrees along it's perimeter around it 13 years ago. Every year we would take out as many as we could, based on which ones were in the worst shape. The trees were about 15 years old when we purchased the house. For those that don't know austrees have an average lifespan of 10 to 30 years with 30 years being a really generous estimate given there is not a ready supply of water for them. We recently had a storm that just missed our area with 80 to 100 mph winds. If it hit here, some of these trees would have made it to my neighbor's houses.

We got it down to only about 30 trees remaining, but since they were becoming dangerous faster than we could get them down. We paid pros to get them rest down. They chipped everything small enough and piled the rest in our yard. I tried to explain layering so that they would decrease the total amount of holes but they didn't really care in the end.

I'm trying to figure out an optimal way to get the voids filled given that for the most part we cannot move the large stumps.

Does anyone have any ideas? My goal is to plant native pollinators. My worries are keeping it stable and functional enough that it doesn't offend our HOA


I attached some pictures but I didn't know anyone really want to see... I appreciate any insights you can share.

Thanks!
Christine