Today started out dreary and gray but warm so I wanted to take advantage of the warmer temperature to cut back more of the invasive privet (probably Chinese Privet, Ligustrum sinense) that has taken over.
I decided to continue work on the area behind the barn where a severe storm in 2019 took out a wide swath of trees. That entire area has been completely overrun by the privet in just three and a half years.
As I started down the hillside, there was a small privet shrub growing under the edge of an Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana). It was the first to go.
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| Privet growing under the edge of an Eastern Red Cedar. |
Since most of these shrubs/small trees are too big for me to cut at the base using my limb saw, I've decided to just cut the limbs off, leaving the trunks for another day. I'll come back later with a chainsaw. I've decided I'm going to buy a DeWalt electric chainsaw for this because first, RAFs big Husqvarna is too heavy for me to easily lift and second, even if I could handle it, I don't want to have to repeatedly start and stop a gas-powered saw (cut, then treat, cut, then treat, repeat and repeat and repeat).
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| Bigger limbs have been cut down with the limb saw. |
I dragged those branches up the hill so they'd be out of the way, then took the loppers and cut off the smaller side shoots.
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| Snip off all the smaller limbs with the loppers. |
That first shrub/tree was now ready to be cut down and treated with herbicide.
I continued on down the hillside where the big oak tree lay rotting on the ground. I find that part of the woods to be very dark and creepy, almost eerie, because the privet is so thick down there.
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| Standing at the edge of a big stand of privet in the woods. The picture just doesn't capture how dark the woods are, and how much privet is growing. |
The privet plants in this area are probably no more than four years old, but already have pretty good-sized trunks. Most are probably four to five inches in diameter at the base, with numerous shoots coming up all around the base. Again, they're too big for me to easily cut with my limb saw. I can cut them, but it really wears me out and I end up not making much progress when I try to do that. So again, my plan is to cut off all of the limbs and side shoots then come back with a chainsaw to finish the job.
Unfortunately for me, most of these privet plants have been very productive, and some are still absolutely loaded with berries. But even worse are the millions of berries that have already dropped to the ground. The woods are going to require constant vigilance over the next few years (probably for the rest of my life and even on after I'm gone), to keep the young seedlings pulled up or treated with herbicide. Otherwise, it will end up worse than it is now!
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| Just a very small section of the ground (maybe 8" x 12"?) under one of the privet plants. The ground is literally covered in some places with berries that have already dropped off. |
It's amazing how much it opens things up to just take out three of the privet plants. You can get a better idea from this picture how dark it is deeper into the woods.
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| Limbs have been removed so these are ready for their cut stump treatment. |
I don't know how it managed to get through the privet, but there was quite a bit of the foam insulation from the old chicken house here too. I had brought a bucket to hold berries that I stripped off the limbs that were dragged up out of the woods, so I was also able to pick that up too.
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| Foam insulation from the old chicken house. |
It didn't take very long to cut as many limbs as would fit on my little cart. I think I worked down there maybe an hour to an hour and a half altogether.
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| Privet limbs loaded onto the cart. |
So back to the house to unload these. Little Joe has some work to do!
I think I cut limbs off five or six privet shrubs/trees today. I only have about 10,000 more to go.