Bush's alders vs coldstream

[Obie]

I just placed an order for 50 alders from coldstream because I remember seeing a post from Scott bishop on Michigan sportsman forum where he said that's where he got his. I'm not a member over there yet so I figured I'd ask if anyone here has any of his or any experienced with coldstreams recent stock and how they grow. If anyone has some of scotts that seem to sucker quite a bit I would love the chance to get some for my project in some wet ground.

 

[marlin]

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These are from Coldstream. Planted in mid Mi. about 12 yrs. ago. They are around 8 inches in diameter and I'm guessing 30- 40 ft. tall. They did not sucker much. I'm not real impressed with them. I will hinge cut all in the near future and replace with American Plum.

 

[Obie]

How were they early in life? What size did you plant? Looking for more shrubby cover while my spruce and pine get some size to them.

 

[Tree Spud]

I just placed an order for 50 alders from coldstream because I remember seeing a post from Scott bishop on Michigan sportsman forum where he said that's where he got his. I'm not a member over there yet so I figured I'd ask if anyone here has any of his or any experienced with coldstreams recent stock and how they grow. If anyone has some of scotts that seem to sucker quite a bit I would love the chance to get some for my project in some wet ground.

If you are looking for shrubs that do well in wet ground, cancel the bush alder order and buy some hybrid willow and speckled alder. Both do well in wet soil and will spread by seed from the catkins. Speckled alder is also not a preferred browse so somewhat deer tolerant. On the hybrid willow, you can take cuttings from them and plant them.

 

[marlin]

Those are speckled alder in the picture above. I planted 100- 2ft. uncaged bare root from Coldstream in 2012. The deer ate about half of them to my surprise. They did not achieve the cover I was looking for. Pictured below are American plum planted the same year as speckled alder .A little slower growth but achieve the cover I was looking for.

 

[rocksnstumps]

Speckled alder is what Scott Bishop promoted growing. Think his family continued to sell cuttings from his original planting for awhile. Not sure if they still have an annual sale or not.

As with most advice, try to see if your conditions match the glowing reports from others and try some before jumping in with both feet. I for one will not be planting any more plum on my land. 20 yrs in and know they grow rather slow on my hill but other stuff does well. No suckering from my plum and planted as cover would be a disappointment. Crabapples and oaks do probably 5x better, heck maybe 10xthan plum so not like soil is junk.

Do think plum like a bit wetter site like sides of ditches where more water but not pooling up

 

[SD51555]

Speckled alder needs to be cut often. If it isn’t, it’ll go straight up and just produce canopy. It suckers like mad when cut in the winter, and it’ll be 6’ tall again by the end of the summer.

If I could, I’d cut it every three years, but I’ve got too damn much, so I just cut what I can.


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[marlin]

Would you recommend I cut the trees off completely or hinge cut to Promote sucking? Referring to the speckled Alder in the picture above.

 

[Telemark]

Would you recommend I cut the trees off completely or hinge cut to Promote sucking? Referring to the speckled Alder in the picture above.

If you hinge them, you are likely to get new bushy growth from the stump to the absolute tip of the tree. It's likely to take root where the branches poke into the ground. After the first year or two, it's damn hard to get rid of. But if you are looking to make an impenetrable wall that will last a long time, that is a good way to go.

I've been able to remove a couple willows and alders that fell over into a field. It was a real bummer, but it's possible. Basically you wait till winter and run a chainsaw along the log to take off the growth on the top. Then you cut the log up and remove the pieces. Then you have to wait till everything sprouts again in Spring and hit it with a good dose of gly. Then go back in late August and spray whatever's left with a good dose of 2,4-d. Same system worked for birch, now that i think about it.

 

[Obie]

Thanks for the replies. I've been experimenting with black locust suckering and producing fantastic cover and gets browsed fairly hard the first year after a clear cut. My Norways have escaped browse but some white pine and loblolly have gotten a snip. The middle of my back field is very wet and holds water for a while into the summer. I'll keep my order of speckled alder from cold stream and add cuttings of willow and rod. It's a reed canary grass area, so I will spray at first green up. Is there any pre emergent herbicide I can spray that won't hurt the bareroots or cuttings?
On the positive side, I found a giant shed that I must have walked past 100 times. He got shot the year after he dropped this set, aged at 9.5 yrs old based off of camera data.

 

[SD51555]

Would you recommend I cut the trees off completely or hinge cut to Promote sucking? Referring to the speckled Alder in the picture above.

I'm not a big fan of hinge cutting where I am. I'm hitched to the theory we've been working on here for a few weeks about cover that's too thick. I believe there needs to be big blocks of thick cover, but with ample room to escape in many directions for when the government mercenaries (wolves) come rolling through to loot and murder. Maybe a better way to think about it is visually thick and windproof, but functionally open?

 

[SD51555]

I keep adapting how I cut this stuff. Something new I did this year was to drop all of mine into piles, and keep the piles small enough that they don't become a fatal funnel. I made a video of my winter cut which was about 90% alder whacking. If you don't wanna watch the whole thing, skip to the 4:00 mark and watch the last 90 seconds to get the ground view and walk through. I picked a spot and went in and just start hollowing out a fall zone, and then fold everything into that center so there was very little to move. I had to move some, but I bet I didn't touch 80% of it.

Winter Cut 2023

What do you do when you just had the worst season you've ever seen? Work harder than you ever have.

rumble.com

This is what it looks like from the tri-pod stand.



This next pic is to the right of the pic above. I'm trying to get this patch of slough grass to spread. Hoping with some sunlight, it'll do just that. This area I whacked down a few years ago is zero visibility below 4'. I just screwed up and wasn't very smart with where I laid everything. I did make a couple trails through it, but I wish I had one more.

 

[SD51555]

Here's a scratch up of all the escape routes in there. This will be thicker than **** in a year or two, but they'll have lots of ways out. There are 8 piles of of brush out there.

 

[marlin]

Here's a scratch up of all the escape routes in there. This will be thicker than **** in a year or two, but they'll have lots of ways out. There are 8 piles of of brush out there.

View attachment 62532

Very nice!!!

 

[Obie]

This is first year switchgrass, frost seeded last winter into bean stubble with some browse pockets. The short stuff is cave in rock and the tall stuff is rc big rock, im throughly impressed with the growth with zero spraying or mowing. I seeded wild crabs, ash, soft maple helicopters and box elder choppers into the browse pockets. Some have partridge pea and cone flower and some have white pine seedlings from the side of the road. I'll be dragging locust tops and brush honeysuckle that i clear into it for structure. It will also protect some Scotch pine going in this year.

 

[Obie]

I've been experimenting with black locust because it grows everywhere on my place and i would rather use it than kill it if i can. I only did a small area of hinging and a small area of clear cuts last year and had multiple deer beds and rubs everywhere in both areas. This year I'm slowly chopping away at them hinging more and cutting for firewood.
Here is the clear cut area
I've got 70 conifers planted that made it through the drought this summer. I need to protect these spruce this year. The bucks found a few of my cedars, I hope they recover.
This is a wasteland on the farm. The plan is to disk to break up the sod this winter, do a shallow tilling after the weeds get 6 to 8 inches tall, and hit it with simazine, gly, and 24d. Once the 24d is out of the soil, ill do a shallow tilling, roll, broadcast, roll 5# pr acre of rc bigrock and tecumseh mix on 10 foot strategic dividers around the areas that lack cover. I'm hopeful that the seedbank will hold something. It's been mowed for 15 years and this is the 4th year not being cut. I've got alot of forb and shrub seed collected this winter that will go in there. The wet areas will get alder and a few hybrid poplar to be hinged in the future. I've got a ton of trees coming this spring along with almost 10 pounds of hard mast nuts stratifying right now. I will carve out clover and chickory paths in it once I have a few years growth. I've got 17 acres of sanctuary behind my place they move to after a few snows knock most of the cover down. I hope to make them hard to hunt by giving them little reason to leave.

 

[Brian662]

This is first year switchgrass, frost seeded last winter into bean stubble with some browse pockets. The short stuff is cave in rock and the tall stuff is rc big rock, im throughly impressed with the growth with zero spraying or mowing. I seeded wild crabs, ash, soft maple helicopters and box elder choppers into the browse pockets. Some have partridge pea and cone flower and some have white pine seedlings from the side of the road. I'll be dragging locust tops and brush honeysuckle that i clear into it for structure. It will also protect some Scotch pine going in this year.

Looks nice.

I wouldn't move a bush honeysuckle top anywhere near a warm season grass field. Could be some seed on any of those tops and you'll just be creating a bigger headache for yourself once it spreads.

 

[Obie]

Here are 2 of the mature buck encounters out of multiple this season. The first never came close enough, I changed that by making a brush line they have to come around that brings them to 25 yards from the barn. (We only blind hunt here to put zero pressure on the deer. Access from the farm stead in the center of the property. No humans in deer areas during daylight)
The second one munched in the plot as I decided if I wanted to take him. There are bigger running around.
He ended up being just shy of 20 inches inside and his mass makes him look smaller than he is. Disappointed about the broken matching split, but my taxidermy guy is going to fix it.

This deer is young and dumb, he should be something really special one of these days if his tine length scales up.

 

[Obie]

Looks nice.

I wouldn't move a bush honeysuckle top anywhere near a warm season grass field. Could be some seed on any of those tops and you'll just be creating a bigger headache for yourself once it spreads.

All the cover around me is some kind of invasive. Privet, bhs, mfr, autumn olive, Bradford pear..the list go's on. The area isn't a forever property, it will be absorbed by the housing development in 20 years. If I don't buy the 80 around me I will probably be surrounded in 10. I won't intentionality plant or move any invasives, but I won't kill any cover that mother nature sends my way. Once the tree plantings give me the cover I want ill start the chopping of the bigger mature invasives and replace them with a conifer or blocks of cuttings. I can put a big chunk of weed mat down to smother any new growth. Solve it one block at a time like a giant checker board