In praise of brush piles and woody debris (part 2)

Observe and interact with Nature.

I became a dedicated brush-pile builder about 20 years ago when I first moved to my little homestead farm in Centre Burlington, Nova Scotia. My property — about 7 acres — came with an old, mostly-standing barn, which had in days-gone-by housed a small Jersey herd; several small wooden outbuildings that were full of stuff; and a very old timber-frame house. The old farm house — built close to the road — had definitely witnessed a long era of horse and buggy travel. But despite its present rough-paved and dead-end condition my road had far too much combustion-engine traffic for my liking.

That first spring I set to work digging up dozens of small, white spruce (picea glauca) from my back field and roadsides. I then transplanted the baby conifers — heeling them into a staggered, double-row hedge along the road-front of my property. My objective was to create a living barrier for privacy, a wind-break, and a refuge for wildlife (especially insects) — while also satisfying my aesthetic desire to be nestled snuggly into a secret, woodland garden. I assumed that I would not see any desired results from my tree-planting labour before many years passed. I knew that when planting trees, one requires plenty of patience!

Around the same time I was planting my hedgerow, my neighbour D — who lived right across the road from me — was also planting young spruce trees along the road frontage of their property. Without really intending to, we created an in situ, comparative research study that would allow us to observe the impact of employing brush and woody debris on the re-growth of deforested land. I believe the information we gleaned is significant for ecological stewardship.

My old homestead —having been completely abandoned for over four years, and not farmed at all for at least 20 years before that — had no shortage of early-succession flora, most of it marching determinedly into the once-upon-a-time hay fields. In Nova Scotia, as in much of the Maritimes, it is not unusual to find speckled alder (aldus incana) growing profusely on land that was once cleared, is somewhat moist but not water-logged. This was the case with a significant portion of my own seven acres.

I soon came to understand —vis-a-vis several neighbourly offers to bush-hog my property — that quite a few country folk detest alders and will go to great lengths to eradicate them. To be fair, while alder is fast-growing, nitrogen fixing botanical, it tends to grow into dense thickets in old hay-fields and pastures, thus choking out any other botanical possibility. Alder leaves can also be somewhat toxic to livestock, especially if it is consumed in large quantities. However, most healthy livestock will only consume alder if there is little else to eat.

In between my home renovations, digging-up and replanting baby spruce trees, getting my first vegetable gardens ploughed and planted, and de-constructing dilapidated out-buildings, I made a daily practice of taking-up my pruning saw and cutting back alder bushes. I tried my best to work within Nature’s own wise design — moving slowly and thoughtfully before making any grand changes to the land. Using hand-tools helped ensure that I didn’t mess things up by being too hasty. I cut only those bushes encroaching upon my gardens — pushing the advancing thickets back to a woodland verge that edged a rivulet, which flowed through my property. I left to grow the many alder bushes and willow trees that were growing in the wetland meadow, which separated the front of my land from my back fields and woodlot. In these ways, I worked with the natural inclination of the land to heal itself, which it was doing —in large part — by slowing down the flow of water and cooling the soil.

With my daily pruning practice, it did not take long to accumulate a large stock-pile of brush. I started laying some of this brush onto the hedgerow of small spruce trees I was planting. At first I was rather judicious in how much brush I laid down, but with my mounting pile of alder cuttings, my baby spruce trees were soon buried in branches and leaves.

Then summer came in fast - as it tends to in Nova Scotia. My rather ambitious gardens and need to generate an income soon redirected my attention and energy. My daily meditative practice of cutting brush and making hedgerows was clearly going to be limited to being an early spring activity.

When summer turned to autumn and the overwhelming demands of being a novice market gardener finally began to ease up, I began to resume my daydream-wanderings on my land. I revisited the spruce trees I had planted earlier in the spring and found, to my delight, that not only were my little trees still alive they were growing vigorously. Many had put on nearly a foot in new growth. I was equally astonished to find that most of the brush I had buried them under in the spring had disappeared - as if it had melted into the ground.

Meanwhile, across the road, I observed that my neighbour’s spruce trees, which had not had brush piled on top of them, were not nearly as vigorous. Many, in fact, looked down-right stunted — as if they had not grown at all the whole summer — and were more yellow than green.

I wondered what was going on with these two different tree-planting scenarios. I guessed that the alder brush had provided some growth enhancing benefits to my young trees. But what?

In the next installment of this series I will explore the science behind the remarkable benefits of utilizing brush and woody debris in woodland restoration and soil regeneration.