My husband spent the last few years planting a forest of 6,000 trees (oak, maple, chestnut, fir, cherry and larch) for our descendants.
One day, long after our names have been forgotten, someone carr...
Not that i want to be a debby downer, because you know....its already planted and cool in general, but i would have opted for higher density planting, mixing the species more and not do it in rows.
You need a bit more maintenance because after a while because some of what survives (a lot won't make it, long term only about 10% is left but thats the point) has to be actively cut out for a variety of reasons, but you get a better development of the forest overall.
With the current set-up you risk a bunch of things, like a 'dead forest', where there are a bunch of trees, but nothing much else is happening, and you risk large parts of the field just falling over like dominos during a big storm. The row planting is lumber production method, it does not produce forests, it produces an agricultural field of woodcrop.
If you plant all the same species together, and give them just enough space to develop on their own, they grow nice and straight and high. The result is no real light for undergrowth development. The domino thing is because all they bothered to do is grow straight up but they never had really enough space to settle wide, and now all of them are prone to tip over at some point with enough wind; when 1 goes, it falls onto the next etc. etc. and entire rows can be taken out at once. Its easy enough to fix by simply cutting down some trees over the decades.
If you just mix it all up and plant at high density, you basically let nature decide what the precise outcome will be, what succeeds where etc. Also certain species grow taller faster, so the slower growing ones have to make due for the time being; the slower growing ones tend to get older, so after a bunch of decades it will eventually be the top dog anyway because the other stuff died. In the meantime you get various height profiles, open spots, and all sorts of ways for light to get in, trees that die early and become homes for insects etc. etc.
The current setup is not the end of the world, just cut back and remove a tree here and there in the comming years and it will be fine. Leave the cut down trees to rot :)
Good luck!
You need a bit more maintenance because after a while because some of what survives (a lot won't make it, long term only about 10% is left but thats the point) has to be actively cut out for a variety of reasons, but you get a better development of the forest overall.
With the current set-up you risk a bunch of things, like a 'dead forest', where there are a bunch of trees, but nothing much else is happening, and you risk large parts of the field just falling over like dominos during a big storm. The row planting is lumber production method, it does not produce forests, it produces an agricultural field of woodcrop.
If you plant all the same species together, and give them just enough space to develop on their own, they grow nice and straight and high. The result is no real light for undergrowth development. The domino thing is because all they bothered to do is grow straight up but they never had really enough space to settle wide, and now all of them are prone to tip over at some point with enough wind; when 1 goes, it falls onto the next etc. etc. and entire rows can be taken out at once. Its easy enough to fix by simply cutting down some trees over the decades.
If you just mix it all up and plant at high density, you basically let nature decide what the precise outcome will be, what succeeds where etc. Also certain species grow taller faster, so the slower growing ones have to make due for the time being; the slower growing ones tend to get older, so after a bunch of decades it will eventually be the top dog anyway because the other stuff died. In the meantime you get various height profiles, open spots, and all sorts of ways for light to get in, trees that die early and become homes for insects etc. etc.
The current setup is not the end of the world, just cut back and remove a tree here and there in the comming years and it will be fine. Leave the cut down trees to rot :)
Good luck!
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