Forest Restoration
Forest Restoration Services
Most people ask what does Forest Restoration Services include? In this article we would like to clear that up by walking you through the process of how we transform a forest in a short amount of time. The main thing that we look at when doing forest restoration is: what is already growing there, what is supposed to be growing there naturally, what does the landowner want the property to look like, and what goals is the property supposed to meet for the landowners enjoyment.
Why?
So why go through all of this effort to optimize your property? Ultimately you as the landowner need to have an interest in what is going on, and desire more out of your property. Most people don’t realize the missed opportunities of owning a forest and only look at it as their place to get away and do their hobby. What if the same piece of ground that used to only be valuable for doing a hobby was looked at as an investment for the future in the form of correctly grown trees while still maintaining the correct atmosphere that you want. That property that’s only good for deer hunting and nothing else, can now be made into an investment that takes some time and very little effort to grow. This can be accomplished just by cutting out some of the junk and allowing the right trees to grow with the right amount of competition. Or if you’re wanting to create better habitat you can easily do this by making thickets in some areas that won’t grow nice trees due to various reasons while also creating a space to grow the marketable logs on the same property. There is honestly an endless amount of ways to change a property to better it for your goals so why not do it. There is nothing more satisfying than after completing forest restoration services on a property and seeing it transform into what the landowner wants.
Walk Through and Diagnose
We do a walk through and diagnostic of your property to get a feel for it and to understand how we can better manage the property to meet your needs. The initial walk through is free and we really enjoy getting to know you and the property and figuring out how we can help. This also makes sure that the landowners goals are attainable and not out of scope with the landscape that is available to work with and allows us to give suggestions on the spot to help you too understand what our process is. The biggest thing that needs to be remembered is that nothing happens in a forest fast except for cutting down trees. So when we do our forest restoration services it is a must to remember that sometimes it can take 1 to 5 years to really get a feel for what was accomplished. Sometimes when we do a project it isn’t in the plans to remove the trees that we cut down, sometimes causing landowners to become nervous about the timeline of being able to walk through their woods again because there are trees laying everywhere. In these examples I have experienced first hand that after about 2 years the woods that were once full of trees laying on the ground making it very difficult to walk through, now are very navigable and growing nicely.
Cut Down
When we start the cutting phase of the forest restoration services we will have identified what the species, size, and characteristics will be of the trees that we are saving. Then we will be deciding which trees should be cut down to allow the correct trees to grow. A plan will be devised to allow us to cut the trees down in a way that will make it easier for the clean up process if there is one. Then we will begin cutting down the trees, this is a process that can actually go quite quickly if the trees are spaced a little and leaning slightly.
Clean Up
The clean up process can look like many things depending on how park like you want the setting to be. We have cut down hundreds of undesirable trees per acre and left them to decompose, we have also piled and burned thousands of trees with our skid loader because the landowners wanted them gone. We also recently got a forestry mulching head which can quickly and efficiently turn standing trees into mulch in a matter of seconds. This is extremely effective when wanting to remove a large amount of trees under 10 inches on limited terrain. You can also use it to grind up larger trees as well, however it just takes a little longer to accomplish but it is still an effective way to get them to decompose faster. We will also be offering tree disposal soon where we can haul it away given that there is enough interest in the product offering.
Plant or Promote
After the forest restoration services are complete we will look at whether or not we should plant more bare root seedlings in the area to get more diverse and desirable species in the forested area. The other option we can do is to optimize our work to make it more likely for seedlings to grow of the species that we desire, if the mature trees are present in the area. The idea of getting new trees to grow in your forest is very important because it is the representation of what the forest will look like in the future. What type of seedlings are growing can tell you a lot about what the current forest conditions are best suited for and shows what needs to be done to get the desired species to grow.
Our Offer
Just to show you that we are serious about our work and to prove how much we can do in a day our first day of labor is 50% off! We want you to feel comfortable with knowing that we stand behind our work and the expertise behind it.