I'm in a Killing Mood

We've got some trees of unknown varieties along the fence line that we'd like to take care of after the nesting birds have gone south. We will be moving a Kestrel box and want some of the trees gone. Those can be cut down. But there are larger trees along another fence that I would like to keep up, but dead, for the woodpeckers.

I've heard of something called "girdling". There seems to be different methods. If any have experience, would you share what you think works best. I'd like to avoid chemicals, if possible.

These are way out back with nothing to run into except fence when they'd fall over time. We do not have animals, so it doesn't matter. We already have one "messy" fence line for the wildlife. :)

Girdling- like a beaver is one, but what types of trees are they? Bugs attack living trees as well for the woodpeckers- which is usually a sign the tree is already dying. Some trrees are ttougher than others.

Usually a wire/rope/string left in place around the trunk of a tree can girdle a tree but not necessarily kill it. The bark can envelop the material as it grows without serious detriment (but then maybe this is not girdling but I've heard to remove ropes after awhile so it would not girdle the tree).

I suspect if you wanted to kill a tree by girdling that you would strip away the cambium layer completely around the tree with enough separation so that it cannot heal itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girdling

We are losing so many trees! Bois d'arc is known to simply keep growing over the wire fences til it cant be seperated, but oak and elm do the same. Elm I have seen the bark peeled in a huge hunk and it heal itself...grrr

You might not want to girdle a tree that is prone to suckers or spreads by the roots. You could turn one problem tree into a big bush or even a grove. If you are going to do it, take off a strip of bark down to the wood before the nights start to cool and the leaves start changing color - it is more likely to be fatal if the tree isn't dormant.
Next year, keep removing any suckers or sprouts when they still small.
It is weird for us out west to grasp the concept of too many trees - it is usually just an unrealistic goal here.

Thank you all for your replies.

The trees are mulberry. :( We'll give your suggestion a try, pollengarden.

Oh, our woodpeckers have plenty of food... it's nesting sites that are at a premium, so I didn't just want the trees cut down. The birds lost so many dead trees last year when neighbours cut theirs down at the back end of a cemetery. :( These trees would have been no harm to anything, but stray birders that walked in the area... us.

Iowa was largely tallgrass prairie before the settlers came, that reason alone is why we have too many trees. And many know what Iowa is nearly covered in now... corn and beans and beans and corn, except for the small towns and big cities scattered about. I wish I could find the quote, but Iowa is one of the top states for destroying the most native habitat. I am so grateful for the entities that are striving to restore some of this.

One case, a family donated their farm land to the county. Field tile has been ripped out to create some marshland, and large areas of prairie restored. I walked through some yesterday and only got one dog tick out of that. :)

How tall are the Mulberry trees? I thought woodpeckers liked to nest pretty high up.

You can create nest sites without killing the tree outright. Just prune it "wrong" . Cut off branches back to the trunk (branch collar). Pick branches that are 1-2 inches larger around than the size of the entrance hole you need. If you leave a short stub, it won't heal at all. If you do it properly down to the collar, it will heal in an inch or two, but probably no farther. In either case, the wood in the branch base will die and rot out. The rot will eventually spread and take out the center of the trunk & the tree will be hollow. If you were to look at the tree rings, it would rot from the year of the branch damage inward. That is how those natural holes into hollow trees form in the wild. The original damage to the branch often happens when another tree falls and shears off the branches of an adjacent tree.
Mulberries are fairly good bug habitat, which means they are fairly good migratory bird habitat, so you might leave them alive. And you may live long enough to see them rot & die anyway!
They don't teach how to kill trees faster in Master Gardeners, but you might try drilling holes into the branch cuts to let the rot in faster. I recommend a 5/16 to 3/8 bit, because bees like that size hole & it can do double duty.

This message was edited Aug 21, 2014 8:54 PM

This message was edited Aug 21, 2014 9:17 PM

Here is a post I did on the Fruits and Nuts forum that an example of a hollow tree:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1079189/

I looked for an example on the internet, this photo shows a tree that someone has been hacking branches off of for years:

http://www.bairstreeservice.com/newsletter/09sept5.jpg

Also, I had another thought. If you have a row of trees and bushes along a fence line, power line, or any other sort of line - then they may have been planted by birds that ate and then re-distributed the berries or seeds. And your woodpeckers wouldn't have been native to the prairie, either, except in riparian corridors where there were trees.

This message was edited Aug 21, 2014 8:52 PM

Thank you so much for the additional info, pollengarden!

Yes, you are right about the woodpeckers not being here originally, but with "habitat" as it is, they are here now. Unless we could buy up a large amount of land around us, we are just a small fragment at 9 acres.

The Bobolinks were the very reason we stopped having the pasture mowed for hay. I was so discouraged to read in a recent local Audubon newsletter that sites of less than 40-acres may have one or two Bobolink nests, but it is considered a "population sink" because of the increased risk of predation. Grassland birds are the ones I really would like to help, but we can only do so much with the corn and beans surrounding us. Even if we cut down every tree, I am not sure it would really do much for the birds I want to help most. So I am trying to find a happy medium, if there is such a thing.

I must have missed something. How does getting rid of the trees help the Bobolinks? Less places for birds of prey to hide?

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Bobolink/lifehistory#at_habitat

They are a grassland bird, and so trees, roads, etc fragment the available lands for these and other birds that are in this habitat.

Colorado's state bird is the Lark Bunting. It likes wide open undeveloped prairie, and prefers mid-grass to short-grass. That means it is only found on the unpopulated Eastern edge of the state, and most Coloradoans have never seen one. I was born here and I never saw one until I was in my 40's.

The runner up for state bird was the Mountain Bluebird. It likes Mountain meadows. I was researching how to encourage them. Recommendations say put up a house every 100 feet, and expect them to only use half, spacing their nests every 200 feet or more. That is a fairly large meadow!

Both are migritory insect eaters.

Chillybean, I took a picture with you in mind.

My Grandfather had a nicer-than-average Mulberry that he grew for Grandkid bait. I have happy memories of berry picking in the '60's. When my Father took over in the 80's, he cut it down to humor a neighbor that didn't like purple bird-droppings on her car. And he cut it down again every few years. In the last decade, it has been my problem. I decided to let it grow - it is not the only mulberry in the neighborhood, so it isn't responsible for all the bird-droppings -but it does have better tasting berries than most .

The point is, cutting it down didn't kill it, and neither would have girding. It suckered back, then the suckers had suckers, through multiple butcherings. So girding your Mulberries, or even cutting them down, may not kill them. It may just create a dense grove of Mulberry bushes. So if you really want them dead ASAP, you may have to use chemicals. Some stump killer painted on the cut edge of the stump, or in the groove where you girded it, should work. I took out a volunteer row of Siberian elms that way, and it got most of them with one application. I think you have to have fresh cuts with green inner bark. I don't think it will work when they are dormant, or on old dried cuts.

Interesting discussion.

I wonder how well a new prairie can hold up anyway, without the traveling herds of grazing animals it should have. But it would have to be better than corn beans beans corn

Thank you for the added info, pollengarden. I need to get my husband to read this.

sallyg, I am not sure I could get any bison on here. :) I wish land was cheap here and the farmers want to get rid of it. We sure would try to buy some up.

If anything, we do get lots of bugs. It was neat meeting some new insects this summer. We've talked about doing some burning, but with surrounding fields, we have to be oh, so careful. I learned from someone, you can actually hire the fire department to do that for you.

FYI:

Ted Turner has the largest herds of buffalo nowadays (unless it has changed recently). Largest landowner in NM, and maybe MT. Also has ranches in NE, KS, OK, and no telling what other states. At least he is trying to change it back to the way it was a long time ago.

For what it is worth - the buffalo burgers at his restaurants (Ted's Montana Grill) don't taste much different than beef...


http://www.tedturner.com/turner-ranches/turner-ranch-map/armendaris-ranch-new-mexico/

I made some awesome chili with buffalo. Sometimes a package here is near sell by date and it is maybe $6-7 a pound .
I listened to an interesting TED Talk about desertification, and this guy restores land by getting it back to a system more like traveling grazing herds. Off topic, but might interest some.

Anyway- chillybean, what you're doing is laudable!

If you are going to raise buffalo, you need a large ranch and money for some serious fencing. Buffalo do roam, and when they get in the mood to travel, a regular stock fence won't hold them. Antelope are about the same, although they don't migrate as far as a Buffalo can go. But my sister has wondered if the semi-domesticated Buffalo we have now might be getting their migratory instincts bred out of them.

If you want wildlife, the foundation is good grasses and insects - that is the bottom of the food chain. Then you build from there with forbs and woody plants.