Posted on 06/18/2018 7:33:15 AM PDT by rarestia
Calling all farmers, land owners, and gardeners... yours truly recently took ownership of 4 acres of property in central Florida and has some questions. I'm far from a greenhorn, but I'm learning new things and don't know what I don't know. Please bear with me and correct any misuse of terms herein.
Approximately 3 acres of my land is heavily wooded and was poorly maintained. My last 2 weekends were spent with a rented brush hog clearing the front acre of my property of undergrowth. Vines were everywhere, some as thick as 2 inches (diameter), and it made for very slow going. There were numerous dead logs and some dead trees are still standing. The rest was poison ivy, overgrown deliberately-planted bushes such as oak leaf hydrangea, and oak saplings.
After clearing, I'm left with a lot of thatch, leaf litter, and branches to clear, but I have my sights set on the future. What are my next steps? I could walk the acre and manually pick up the big stuff. I'll either burn, chip, or save felled lumber. How can I make the grounds arable for turf? Should drop a broadleaf herbicide to tame the weeds? Should I rent a power rake or a dethatcher? Finally, should I aerate and then overseed with bahia or rye?
My goal is to have the natural large trees remain intact with appropriate pruning for shade, some winding mulch pathways, and either turf or natural ground cover such as fern, vervain, or juniper filling in the space where a lot of the weeds and brush were previously. I understand this is going to be a very lengthy process, but with the proper machinery and patience, I believe it's all very possible.
My thanks to any and all FReepers who might be able to help.
Oh hell yes!
Goats love poison ivy, too.
Good advice. That stuff will choke out most anything, looks good and can be harvested as plugs and planted in other grassy areas where it will take over.
Your method makes me think of my youth, and also, ticks, chiggers, copperheads, wasps, hornets, bumble bees, poison ivy rash, and other things that I got impatient with in Missouri.
I one time went down a ravine to check out a small wooded area like this and walked through about 40 yards of crown vetch to get down to the woods. I checked it out, came back up but then got busy for the rest of the afternoon. That night I had about 75 chigger bites from that crown vetch. Just the worst time for their life cycle and I was in misery for about a week.
Bump for later
And Zoysia doesn’t grow very high or fast, so less mowing..............
That said, if you need a big cleared area for some actual purpose, find a guy with a really big bulldozer.
The word "ravine" is not in the Florida dictionary. It is a flat, sandy peninsula. Some rolling hills in a few locales, but otherwise flat.
Lots of low areas and swamps, but no ravines.
If I were you I’d be on the look out for snakes....of all varieties
Tell the Air Force that ISIS has a training camp there and that they should airdrop in a couple tons of napalm.
A researcher, hired by Monsanto, did a study, which concluded, Roundup was cheaper and more affective and safer
than vinegar. Study didn’t say if you would get increased HP or better MPG but there you go.
I’ve seen goats eat a cabbage palm right down to the ground...............
At least with vinegar you won’t get cancer...................
A friend of mine got a goat to clear his lot thinking in the fall they would have a BBQ, then his girlfriend named him.
He cleared the land but the BBQ was now out of the question. He tied the goat to the corner of the barn which only made him mad. He rammed the barn's corner post till the whole structure fell down.
Never let your family name your goat.
Live oaks are the real oaks trees. Water oaks tend to have problems.
We've ended up cutting out all of our water oaks over the years because of disease, brittle branches, rot, etc.
“I live in a wooded subdivision with large lots (1 acre) and I had a neighbor move in next door and cut them all down because he wanted grass.”
that’s horrifying ... unnecessarily cutting down large mature trees is nearly a sacrilege in my book ... and i’m not a tree hugger, i just love trees ... because of bouts of extreme weather (late freezes, high winds, blizzards, you name it), as well as the frigid winter climate and semi-arid rainfall, trees are difficult to grow and keep in good shape along the front range of Colorado, so there are no tree haters here, regardless of other politics ...
Keep all trees. Let goats go at it for a month. 10 should do the trick. It will be amazingly beautiful, clear, and with a canopy to keep your utilities down.
Don’t forget to test your soil. Pine trees tend to make the soil acidic. Burning may be an option but contact your county first regarding burn laws / permit process.
If you have the time ... go with the goats already mentioned by others.
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