Land-Clearing/Landscaping for Builds

[ultravonder]

Nice place.

Cut, pile then rent the BIGGEST chipper you can for a half day and chip it for mulch. Little home chipper are for gardens and would be useless for your chipping.

I know, I bought a Bearcat and I spent a huge amount of time. Later I hired an arborist with their chipper. They could not load it fast enough and we got a huge pile of mulch.

Don't clear too much that's where critters live. Secondly, horses will clear out a huge amount of the stuff. There's a guy on tiktok that is clearing his land. He puts hay bales in the bush and the horses break down the vegetation and eat the rest while they are hanging out in the area. Horses were / are wild animals and they know how to do it.

Previous owner had a herd of goats, and they did an amazing job at clearing the small underbrush in the trees. I'm hesitant to put horses out in the woods here - every time a wind rolls through, we have a lot of large dead branches fall suddenly. The kind that could kill if someone was underneath. And apparently every tree species here is listed as poisonous to horses (oak, pine, walnut, etc.), so not sure how to take that. For now we plan to remove the smaller trees in the cleared section and fence off away from larger trees.

 

[P0234]

I have a good friend who works for Polaris that tells me they sell equipment to employees at a steal every once and a while. It's definitely more of a want than a need, but I think it could make operations run much smoother!

Take him up on it. I waited almost a year before I bought a quad. The wife having to push the lawn tractor plus wagon uphill helped sell her. Can't believe I've put almost 40 hours on it since buying it in January. Just doing chores!

 

[rancherbill]

When I burn brush I only do it when it is raining. Has always worked for me.

KEH

I totally agree. I tarp the center of the pile to keep it dry. After the rain has got everything else wet, I take off the tarp, splash some diesel and it all go quickly.

 

[BruceMc]

A forestry mulcher is a thing of beauty.

Yep. Clearing out some more black spruce at my place last month. Close to 1/2 acre in under 4 hours -

 

[jives]

One bit of advice before you get too far into it. Those trees took years -- decades -- to grow. You ain't never gittin 'em back. Be judicious with the mulcher! What you have standing are the heartiest trees.

We've planted over 250 trees on our 7ac property of former farmland. Success rate is about 60%. Deer, mowing, die-offs, voles, gypsy moths, weather, etc. It would be great to have a grove of mature trees!