| <div class="ck-content"><h4>A paper mulberry story</h4><p>In 2023, members of Alphi Phi Omega cut and painted the massive wisteria vines growing up trees just west of the rose garden. Those trees are now doing…better. They were clearly badly damaged by the wisteria, but in the years to come they will fill out.</p><p>While the UNC students focused on wisteria, Steven got a start on the awful spread of paper mulberry trees. He cut a number of the smaller ones, but some really big ones remained. May 15th was the day to tackle those - with his chainsaw.</p><p>And oh my what an adventure this turned into. Steven tells the story below:</p><p>The area in front of the rescued trees was a dense mess of mulberry and wisteria regrowth:</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1GyqFPpMwyWJEXE8-jJ0TqegRp1TJsm7K&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE" width="600" height="400"></div><p>I needed to go behind this mess to get to the base of the trees. The previous rounds of cutting both wisteria and mulberry meant that even getting to the remaining mulberries was a challenge. Sometimes when I put my foot down, it broke through detritus a foot or two deep. </p><p>Finally made it and was surprised to find that there weren't all that many remaining trees. Instead, those mounds were mostly from two really big mulberries. The first came down easily:</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1_x7dmVtnc1o2CEa7Z5Xw7npk8pb1-my-&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE" width="600" height="400"></div><p>Then I pushed on through the tangle and came across a real monster:</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1JcdTAabruFYYqTNxFdGufWqcPjQ23uDZ&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE" width="600" height="400"></div><p>The blue-painted cut to the right was a large branch I cut to get to the main trunk. Easily a foot in diameter. But as you can see, it was growing almost horizontal, then up. There was nothing under the horizontal part of the trunk. So I figured I could chainsaw it and it would easily fall forward.</p><p>I figured wrong. </p><p>I had cut almost all the way through and still saw very little movement. I should have removed the chainsaw and try to finish it off with my Silky Ibuki saw. But instead I finished the cut and the massive freed trunk crunched right against the chainsaw. I think there were so many vines on the tree that it didn't have enough freedom of movement to fall. </p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1tW-715DWiNa9hOiU7ZZAYOnqOu4JuKTa&sz=w400-h600"></div><p>I wiggled it, I pulled it up and down, and came pretty darn close to releasing the saw, but no go. Finally, I decided I would use my handsaw to cut the big vertical trunk. That should release the pressure on the base, and it would fall away. Or so I theorized. So I sawed and sawed (fortunately, I had recently put a new blade on my saw and a brand new Ibuki 390 blade competes effectively with a chainsaw. It's <i>amazing</i>)….and then <i>that</i> trunk jammed up and refused to fall.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1W7AXoWhpYCZNSLGNB2_86OVucLTxozHx&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE" width="600" height="400"></div><p>I really hated to leave my chainsaw behind, but I was beginning to reconcile myself to having to contact Adam Smith, Town of Chapel Hill staff, to arrange a time to get some help and retrieve the saw.</p><p>But before doing that, I tried cutting away a lot of the vines….no good. Then I circled around to the front of the mess, next to the trail, and tried pulling the tree down, away from the cuts. So I cut my way in, taking down several smaller mulberries, along the way, yanked at the remaining branches and felt it all give, and fall forward. Hurray! I glanced through the vines and was sure I saw the chainsaw on the ground. </p><p>So I hurried around back to the base of the tree and….ground my teeth. No, the chainsaw was <i>still</i> stuck. The vertical trunk had moved back a bit, but was still stuck.</p><p>That pissed me off. So I pulled on branches and vines, back and forth, and <i>finally</i> the damn thing came off, and then the big trunk fell forward, and my chainsaw came free!</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1_BNzHP1Ng-yt_YWhB97Xe6qcTrsEcZMC&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE" width="600" height="400"></div><p>Whew. That was exhausting. </p><p>Now I need to convince Adam to get a crew to come over and haul away all the dead mulberry and wisteria. There's a lot of park surface to recover and plant with natives once it is cleared out.</p></div><div class="ck-content"><h4>Receive all my reports on tree rescues!</h4><p>If you'd like to get some good news about restoring native habitats delivered straight to your brain upwards of a few times a week, sign in to <a href="https://rewildearth.net">Rewild Earth</a>, click on your name in top right, then My profile. Under Communication Preferences, switch “Send reports of all events” to ON.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1BeynVqu8taOGrsvi56u0mmDKuNJko22h&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE" width="358" height="138"></div><p>Resources you might find useful:</p><ul><li><a href="https://shop.naisma.org/collections/buckthorn-blaster">Buckthorn Blasters</a>: safe, easy herbicide delivery system from the North American Invasive Species Management Association. Don't start cutting without them!</li><li><a href="https://nc-ipc.weebly.com/nc-invasive-plants.html">NC Invasive Plants list</a>: recently updated by NC-IPC, the NC Invasives Plants Council.</li><li><a href="https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/AG259">Overview of different herbicides</a>: glyposphate, triclopyr and others - which should you use?</li><li>Volunteer for <a href="https://triangleland.org">Triangle Land Conservancy</a>: the biggest land conservancy group in our area. </li><li>Volunteer for <a href="https://ellerbecreek.org">Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association</a> (Durham): a wonderful group working hard to maintain contiguous natural areas along Ellerbe Creek.</li></ul></div> |