A Use for Ailanthus, Moris alba & Berberis

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Behold my new brush pile! There's also a bit of Taxus in there as well.

To give a sense of size, here is the brush pile with Emma, who weighs 30 pounds.

I must admit I opened this thread with much trepidation only to be pleasantly surprised that you weren't making candles or something out of these particular plants. Oh how I laughed. When you cut these down did you paint the stump with some sort of happy juice to make sure that they don't come back to haunt you by suckering up ten fold?

You seem to have quite a bit of property there. Although Ailanthus is allelopathic and Berberis appears to be allelopathic, Morus is not. It takes about 100 years to make an inch of soil so you could either leave the Morus right on the ground to add to the biomass or you could use it to create habitat brush piles if that was of interest to you. For what it's worth, Buckthorn (Rhamnus spp.) is not truly toxic either and I frequently leave entire logs on the ground or use them to create habitat brush piles. Any upper portions of the Buckthorn that are fruiting I will burn.

Yes, I painted on quite a bit of "happy juice" (Round-Up) as soon as we downed the Morus and the Ailanthus. I've spent quite a bit of time reading old threads on here in an effort to not ask questions that have already been addressed, and found one that said to cut the tree to about 18" and slather on the juice with a paint brush. If it sprouts, you've given yourself some wiggle room and can make a fresh cut and reapply the juice. Heck, it was probably one of your posts!

But, darn it all, E, I didn't realize that Ailanthus is allelopathic. This was suppose to be a habitat brush pile. There are six big 'ole logs at the base for support and I'm pretty sure that three of them are Ailanthus! Not to mention smaller branches woven through the pile. Thank goodness you mentioned this. I sure as heck don't want to be poisoning the soil! The Berberis are sitting to the side so they'll be easy to dispose of.

Any other problems you see before I rebuild my pile?

Nope, but you might want to try to create an inner cavity. Build it up like a tepee as opposed to the funeral pyre style you currently have. Then toss moss and leaves inside. Try to plant some native vines around the base that will crawl up and create more cover. I generally use Virgin's Bower (Clematis virginiana) and Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). I also plant shrubs around the bases of them. Lately I've been using New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americanus), Eastern Ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius), and Hazelnut (Corylus americana) but this year I just started tossing shade loving Viburnums, Hydrangeas, and one habitat brush piles is surrounded by native ferns. In winter time, I grab a few Christmas trees on garbage days that people throw out and toss those on the pile. I select trees from people's garbage that don't have tinsel on them.

Ha ha ha! I just realized you used my term of endearment for Garlon 4! Happy Juice! I'm really slipping! One thing though, if you can't get your hands on Garlon 4 (it's a couple hundred dollars without the cost of a surfactant), it might be better to go with BrushBGone on your stumps and particularly that Ailanthus. The active ingredient in RoundUp is Glyphosate and the active ingredient in BurshBGon is Triclopyr. I think Triclopyr is going to be considerably more effective. At this time of year, the sap is going to be surging and pushing a chemical out of the stump. I'm thinking that plant is going to sucker on you. If you have a nice drill, maybe you could go out and drill 1/4" holes down into the stump very close to the bark and basically right into the cambium layer. Drill around the edge. After you drill your little holes, pour Triclopyr down them. This way you'll still have your safety net if it suckers because you won't have to take another swipe at the stump to re-treat it. The other thing I failed to mention is that when I paint a stump; I stick a large baggie over the top if it is a smaller stump or wrap it in cellophane if it is a larger stump so that stray cats, squirrels, chipmunks, butterflies and such don't get into the chemical.

This message was edited Aug 29, 2006 11:35 PM

Funeral pyre style? Girl, are you dogging my brush pile? tee hee Just kidding. It does kinda look like that doesn't it! It'll have to wait til this weekend to reassemble and pull out the Ailanthus. Thanks for the tip on planting a vine. I actually think Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) might be nice since its berries are eaten by wildlife. Or maybe Moonseed (Menispermum canadense) if I put the pile in a little more sun.

Yes, I've got a drill and will pick up some BrushBGon. I really don't want that thing to sucker if I can help it. I've been pulling up babies for years and I was hoping to end all that nonsense.

Farfetched:

Here's some handy doctrine from some fine practitioners:

http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/handbook.html

Here's the direct page on triclopyr:

http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/products/handbook/20.Triclopyr.doc

I must disagree with EQ about dismantling your cut brush pile, unless it is full of seed. The dead plants shouldn't create any new allelopathic conditions not already present in your soils due to the original existence of the plants mentioned. Decomposition of the plants as woody branches for wildlife habitat or as wood chips for mulch is actually a recommendation of the TNC (see first link under physical control methods). The allelopathic characteristics of the plants, like pesticides applied to kill them, degrade as the plant degrades.

Ahh, I see V V has renamed Fireweed, this is good.

The Menispermum canadense sounds wonderful.

I''ll agree with V V if you aren't planting anything around the base of your pile and if the current style appeals to you more so than a design affording a slightly larger inner cavity. I'll also agree with him about decomposition of these types of plants as a rule as it does take a 100 years to create an inch of soil so if you can chip some out and spread them around to create biomass it's definitely a good idea to do so providing you aren't chipping any fruiting parts of these plants. Where I disagree is if you are going to be planting around the base of your pile. That's a heck of a lot of allelopathic chemicals all piled up capable of leaching down into an area you created that looks to be all of 25 square feet. I lost all of my Virgin's Bower planted around the bases of habitat brush piles that included Japanese Honeysuckle and I didn't lose the Virgin's Bower around habitat brush piles that didn't include JH. Granted, I only have around 12 habitat brush piles around here and that isn't a great sampling but plants stuck in the ground around the bases of all 3 brush piles created in the areas where I had been removing JH and incorporating it into the "design" of my piles failed to thrive and the little quart pots of these plants are around $4.50 a piece so that didn't make me all that happy.

VV, you're a hoot! Farfetched?

I've already disassembled the pile and the Ailanthus and Berberis has been hauled away. It's really just as well because I'd like to plant Virginia Creeper over the pile. Birds have already "planted" it in several spots in the yard anyway so I might as well use what's there. The pile now looks more like a teepee with a much larger inner cavity, just in case a large critter wants to investigate. We had a opossum with babies take up residence in our yard a few years ago but we haven't seen her in the past two years. It'd be nice if she came back.

Also, recut the stump, drilled around the edge and poured in BrushBGon. Fingers crossed.

VV, the links you sent are good reading for me. There is so much to learn! Thanks for taking the time.

Sherry

Opossums generally don't live that long. She's probably long gone to opossum heaven of natural causes.

I worked a little bit on one of my piles this weekend. I added a few more logs and planted some Heuchera around the base. I couldn't help but notice little tiny raccoon tracks around it. So cute. Now if they'll just stay down in that area and out of my composter I'll be very happy.