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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] what makes black locust last so long?

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  • From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] what makes black locust last so long?
  • Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:37:51 -0400


Jay Woods wrote:
Are you gardening under the trees and cultivating. That will trigger suckering from root clipping.
Jay has named the cause of the "invasive" property of black locust. If we're being more careful with language, black locust is better termed "expansive," since it's merely spreading, like bamboo, into directly adjacent soil, as opposed to "dispersive", which, unlike black locust, means setting seed and flying off into new environments. The word "invasive" is grossly inaccurate, as it puts all the impetus on the species. A species' ability to enter a new environment depends on qualities of that environment (like natural predators, disturbance, unused resources, etc.) more than the qualities of the new species. I like Dave Jacke's term of opportunistic far more than the loaded "invasive." (Dave is sitting next to me right now at the PDC I'm teaching.)

Black locust puts out suckers if the main trunk is cut or if the roots are cut (disturbance). So a naive attempt to get rid of it by cutting, and then angrily cutting the inevitable suckers in ignorance of the intrinsic qualities of the species, will result in exactly the opposite of the desired result. And in typical hubris (writer returns to soapbox) we then hate the plant instead of holding up a mirror to see the real cause of the problem, and trying to understand the character of what we are dealing with.

So how do you work with nature instead of against? If you are determined to get rid of this valuable, multi-functional fast sequesterer of carbon, girdle it and wait for it to die before cutting it down. But better yet, because girdling doesn't always work, in an act of ecological aikido, use the shoots as coppice for firewood, browse, wattle-and-daub construction, small fence supports, and a hundred other things.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com








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