Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[uriel@nasalam.org]

Where I live in the Ozarks many of the Eastern Red Cedar are subject  
to being bent over by snow or ice and never recover.  I've been able  
save some of them by cutting them off at 6-7 feet so the tops don't  
pull them over any further.  They become like 'umbrella trees' and add  
an interesting variation in the makeup of the forest.  These pollarded  
cedars are particularly nice in a forest garden where the primary  
focus is on food-bearing trees since the cedars are great wildlife  
shelter and contribute to the natural balance of the area.
Uriel

Rebekah Wilce wrote:

> Tameson, John et al,
>
> I just learned a little more about this in a permaculture workshop   
> today.  A coppice would be a tree cut off at stump level and allowed  
>  to grow shoots.  A pollard is cut off higher up, at about two  
> meters  as Wikipedia has it.  Both create a different tree shape  
> than a tree  not treated in such a way-- more shoots coming out of  
> the main  trunk.  This lends itself to easy regular harvesting of  
> shoots to be  used as firewood, fencing, stakes, in weaving and  
> sculpture such as  with willow, etc. and radically increases the  
> tree's lifespan.  It  can be done on a 1-25 yr. rotation.  Most  
> deciduous hardwoods will  coppice, so I would guess they could also  
> be pollarded.  In doing a  site analysis and assessment as part of  
> the course today, we found an  old apple tree that had been  
> coppiced.  I believe I understood  correctly that the cutting would  
> be in late winter, so probably right  around now.  Interestingly to  
> me, coppicing was the background of the  medieval economy!  (This is  
> all from Ethan Roland of AppleSeed  Permaculture, who taught the  
> second part of a three-part course today  at the Sullivan County  
> Community College in New York.)
>
> Bekah