Brush Cutting: Explanation and Progress

Kristen was mentioning the other day that many of our friends and family members that aren't local to New England (and that's just about all of them) probably have no real idea of the reasoning behind or the extent of the brush cutting that I've been doing each year.

The house, driveway and lawn area account for less than 1/2 of our 2.6 acres. The remaining acreage is mostly woods and leach field. The entire property is surrounded by fieldstone walls that were thrown up when the property was cleared for farming 150-180 years ago. Here's a link to a post that I made in 2015 about our Plot Lines.

The leach field was put in place when the house was restored in 2006. It's maybe 1/2 acre and is essentially a very large mound of sand that was trucked in for the purpose. People plant lawns over their leach fields but, from what we've read, it would be a bad idea to let trees or larger plants take over the leach field.

The primary plant on our leach field has been a native New England bamboo. It is dense and can easily grow 6-8 feet in a month. It disappears with the first frost but comes back with a vengeance in the Spring. From what I've read, as long as it has leaves, it stores energy in its root. Cut it off and it has to use that stored energy to regrow. Keep it cut off and it will eventually use up its supply of stored energy and die.

This summer, I have kept the bamboo cut off at ground level. It has needed cutting less and less often so I'm pretty sure that it's working. We'll have our first freeze this week so I guess we'll see what happens in the Spring. I'll get after any that shows up at first sprout.

We don't seem to have bamboo anyplace else on the property. What we do have is multiflora rose, poison ivy and tree strangling bittersweet vines.

The multiflora rose is an Asian plant that some idiot thought would make excellent fencing to keep cattle in (or out). It gets huge and it's large thorny branches wrap themselves around everything in reach. Multiflora likes sun to it grows on the edge of the woods and climbs trees to get closer to the sun.

Poison ivy seems to prefer the shade. There seems to be 2 varieties. One variety covers the forest floor line a ground cover. The other variety grows like a vine and climbs trees.

The multiflora and poison ivy are the nastiest to get rid of but their climbing vines don't seem to be particularly threatening to the trees. The bittersweet vines are another case. Bittersweet can be 2" in diameter and they can choke the life right out of the trees. They are very leafy and they can completely cover a tree. We've had cases where we didn't realize that a tree was dead until we killed the bittersweet vines (by severing their connections to the ground).

When we first moved in, the brush had encroached to the point where it was overhanging the edges of the lawn. The multiflora thorns frequently made mowing a painful experience.

These lilac bushes were tangled up in multiflora vines. The closest lilac and row of forsythia bushes were planted later.

We had no idea that these rocks were even there.

Looking across the back of the lawn toward the leach field.

Looking from the back corner of the lawn toward Coldbrook Rd. The non-lawn area here was completely overgrown with multiflora.

That same stretch of lawn looking back from the Coldbrook Rd. end.

 Part of my clearing operation has been cleaning up under the trees on Coldbrook Rd.

Cleaned woods to the left of the lawn. Our property line hits Coldbrook Rd. at the storm drain which is just to the left of the concrete post.

At the other side of the driveway, I've cleaned under the woods to the corner with Barre Rd.

There's a a lot of clearing still to be done once you round the corner.

There's a stone wall along Barre Rd. that was so overgrown that it was invisible and inaccessible from both sides. After the town came by this summer and mowed down the big stuff, I sprayed the entire Barre side of the wall with brush killer. It's still a work in progress but I've been working on cutting the now-dead brush.

From Barre Rd., looking down the wall that marks the back edge of our property.

From that same point, looking down the Barre Rd. property line / wall. That building down at the corner is Rose Cottage, the oldest surviving house it Oakham (1790's I think). It's been empty for years but our friend Brian just bought it and is in the process of restoring it.

Closer to the corner.

 Now let's look at that wall from the inside.

Looking across the leach field toward the point where the back wall meets the Barre Rd. wall (back wall is across the top and a little of the Barre Rd. wall is visible on the right). I have never been able  to clear all the way to the wall because, at some point long ago, the property was fenced in for goats. The overgrown wire fencing was several inside the stone wall and nearly invisible inside the tangle of brush (deadly for chainsaw and brush cutter blades). My project this year has been to remove the fencing and posts so that I could clear brush all the way to the wall. So far, I've removed the fencing all the way up Barre Rd. and maybe a third of the way across the back.

Closer look at that same corner. A couple of my burn piles are in the shot (I'll be able to burn from Jan 15 through May 1).

Rose Cottage through the trees. There's still a lot of clearing to do in this area.

Looking further along the back wall. 

This patch will definitely get my attention this year. I learned a long time ago that, since the multiflora vines grow toward the light, it's much easier to approach and cut the trunks from the woods side. The last couple of pictures have been the woods area that I've cleaned up as I approach this final tier of multiflora.

Back wall straight back from the house. Just to the left of this, the wall turns uphill before continuing farther to the left. It then turns left again and becomes our common border with all of the houses on Maple St. An old hand-dug stone well is up at that highest corner but it may take a couple of more years before that can be easily accessed.

This area is scary. It's back behind the huge log that was in some of the earlier pictures. The multiflora will have to be cut out first but most of the trees are being choked out by bitterroot. We had a tree blow over back here recently. It hung up midair on a smaller tree so I cut the smaller tree to eliminate the hazard. With the smaller tree cut, neither tree budged. Both were suspended by vines from a third tree. Quite a crash when I cut that one.

This is near the back corner of the lawn. The end of the huge log is behind this bunch of multiflora. This is pretty much the same bitterroot section of woods that was in the last shot. The red dots mark treed that are dead and need to be cut.

I've been inching my way toward the backs of the Maple St. properties each year. This clump of multiflora in the front is the last bit that I'll need to do in this area...

...Then it's like this all the way back to the well. This kind of area just needs some thinning out.

The house from the back wall / Barre Rd. corner.

-JC-