The clearing and mulching progress is finally at an end and what is left is open, beautiful and very useful for the owners and the native wildlife. It is imperative that some of the larger dead pine trees are left in place for nesting habitat for birds that use these trunks for hollowing out to bring up their young in.
From the first “excavators” (usually red pileated woodpeckers and redheaded woodpeckers and a few others) on those openings will be in constant use annually until the tree finally falls and another process takes over on the ground.
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/red-headed-woodpecker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pileated_woodpecker
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/red-bellied-woodpecker
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/downy-woodpecker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-bellied_sapsucker
The mulching process helps to hold moisture below the mulch layer and greatly lowers the rate of evaporation after each rain. It also allows the trees that are left a better chance to become larger quicker and in a much healthier way as they grow, because it lowers the competition for sunlight and the groundwater.
The mulched layer quickly composts down into a nice topsoil layer that grasses can easily take over on.
This will open the entire property, and allow larger grazers like deer to raise their young and watch for predators from a longer distance. Normally wildfires would keep large areas like this open naturally but with all the surrounding homes that is no longer possible, so it’s good to have owners of properties that understand this process and maintain the uplands of their properties like this instead of concentrating only on the shoreline where most people play and build.
This property has a large inland pond now and a large open forested canopy which will also allow the breezes to pass and keep it cooler overall. Anyone that wants to purchase a smaller piece of thickly brushed pre-cut forested property – usually let go by the forestry companies for much less after they remove the large pine trees can do this. I will explain.
The timber companies are no longer interested in smaller – usually less than 20 acre plots, surrounded by subdivisions and other privately owned lands. So they sell these off now because it no longer makes sense to them to plant and harvest them. So they are usually allowed to be sold off at much lower prices than anything waterfront of subdivided. Right now these plats are averaging anywhere from $2,850 to $3,500 per acre. Sometimes they are much less!
People can purchase them right after they are forested out and just leave them to grow rough. Then keep them for your retirement and call us to clean them up and we can help plan your retirement dream with these places. As you might imagine as soon as we come in and clean it all up and add ponds, driveways and homesites, the value suddenly skyrockets.
We can come in and excavate a large 1 to 5 acre pond, use the excavated materials to build a raised road in and elevate your new house pad and yard surrounding it and re-arrange the drainage on the balance of the property to keep the land dry except for the pond.
This way you don’t have to own waterfront property, we can create your own waterfront. I know of no less than 40 of these pieces of land from 10 acres up that are just thickly covered with impenetrable brush that chokes the trees and generally is seen as uninhabitable and useless. We can then open them up and turn them into a parklike habitat when you are ready to retire.
