Whether or not you foresee harvesting any of your trees for sale, you may well
want to do some "woodscaping" to achieve some of your goals-from an enhanced sense of seclusion or beauty to environmental conservation to recreation. Woodscaping is really often just landscaping for a wooded property. Some of the many ways you could enhance your woodland's natural beauty or your ability to enjoy it are:
- Plant or maintain a variety of species and ages of trees and shrubs around visible landscape features like waterways, public roads, or where your yard meets the woods.
- Plant or manage selectively to add the beauty of flowers in springtime, or colorful fruit and foliage in the fall.
- Develop a wildflower or shade garden.
- Maintain scenic vistas or access trails by beautiful features of your woods, like a pool in a brook, a mossy log, or a patch of ferns.
- Use low impact forestry methods.
- Dispose of trash.
- Pile woody material for wildlife.
Woodscaping Techniques
In addition, woodscaping activities may also provide future benefits for timber growth. Here are the main techniques you can use:
___ Site Preparation using machinery, hand tools, or other means to facilitate natural or artificial regeneration of a forest stand.
___ Planting seedlings or edge plants (shrubs, vines, etc.) to increase structural diversity in your woodlands.
___ Weeding out competing, undesirable or diseased vegetation to give small trees
space to grow
___ Thinning to help preferred trees grow faster, whether to improve the look of your woods or for harvesting
___ Pruning to improve visibility, the beauty of a stand of trees, trail access and timber quality
You may be able to do some woodscaping yourself, depending on the equipment you have: a pole saw, chain saw, axe and a small farm tractor with attachments (for example, a winch to drag cut trees out of the woods, a brush hog to clear areas for replanting, and a chipper to turn unwanted vegetation into mulch). You can accomplish many projects with fairly simple tools.
Talk to your Maine Forest Service Forester or your consulting Forester about
which techniques are appropriate to your land.
A healthy forest is beautiful. Visiting it is a continuing source of health and happiness.
You and your woods are part of a greater web of life, dynamically weaving earth, sun, water, and air into interdependent human and biological communities. Just so, your woodland is alive with communities of creatures engaged in life processes with far-reaching consequences. Each species, however seemingly insignificant, plays a role - often not fully understood - within the whole, integrated life of the ecosystem. You can promote your woodland's ecological health if you:
- manage to foster a diversity of native species
- protect or plant regionally rare and endangered species
- weed out diseased or defective trees and aggressive, habitat-destroying invaders
- make ecological integrity a priority, while pursuing all other objectives
If you have any doubt about your ability to perform any woodscaping operations, or to handle the work or simply lack the time or experience, talk to your Forester about hiring a logger or other qualified professionals. In budgeting for such work, don't forget that any wood cut may have value that could offset some of the labor costs or provide you with some winter firewood!
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