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I've been watching a lot of bonsai YouTubers lately. The amazing thing about trees is how much abuse they will tolerate and still figure out some way to grow. Y

I've been watching a lot of bonsai YouTubers lately. The amazing thing about trees is how much abuse they will tolerate and still figure out some way to grow. You can find videos of somebody pruning all the leaf-bearing branches and half the roots off of a bonsai like it's nothing, fully expecting the tree to recover. Plants have a very flexible instruction set, something like a list of inner if-statements, which bonsai artists understand almost completely and use to dictate their growth. It seems like the default execution of this instruction set looks like "tree" when there are no particular challenges, but the plant would adapt to almost any trauma short of cutting it down to a 1ft high stump... and even then, you will find stumps growing branches.

ocdtrekkie 5y ago
I have a weed bush I deal with called buckthorn, and you can cut every branch down to the ground and that sucker is coming back in a week or two unless you get a stump grinder. This document from the Minnesota DNR expresses just how hard it is to kill it: https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/natural_resources/invasives/terrestrialplants/woodyplants/buckthorn_what_you_should_know.pdf https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/natural_resources/invasives/te... Specifically it suggests cutting it to the ground and then, if you don't want to use herbicide, to cover it with a black plastic for one to two years. And it says the seeds it drops remain viable for five.
- goldenkey 5y ago
  Couldn't you just burn it?
  - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
    I live in a suburban enough area that I strongly suspect that'd be illegal, even if I felt confident I wouldn't burn down the trees I don't want to burn down.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Frangula must be unburied but the seeds will return shaped as a pigeon. Native here. Is the host of two nice butterflies and a terrific an totally unexpected substitute for conifers. Many people would mistoke it by a small Cypress.
colechristensen 5y ago
There is an old method of forest management which I can't immediately remember the name of which does exactly this, cut down trees to their stumps and let the new growth build up for a number of years and repeat.
- papercrane 5y ago
  Sounds like you're talking about coppicing. Some tree varieties will continue to produce young shoots from the stump, and those can be left to grow and harvested.
  - Balgair 5y ago
    On the Pacific Coast you can see this in action with redwood 'fairy rings'. The old redwoods got chopped down and then the roots sent up shoots in a ring about the stump. It all grows into pretty big ring of trees. Great for making forts in as a kid. Tall, hard woods. Great smells of the dank forest floor and the tannins of the redwoods. Birds twittering, squirrels barking. Dust, duff. Your imagination running buckwild about ancient castles or being an ewok. Mom calls at dusk for dinner, red spaghetti and bugjuice. Coolness creeps in and the scrubjays squawk at another. Just dark enough for flashlight tag. And running through church columns in twilight and you never get tired and you never get old. And everything is perfect. https://www.google.com/search?q=redwood+fairy+ring&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjPitzdm73wAhVDOs0KHeodC_sQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1362&bih=649 https://www.google.com/search?q=redwood+fairy+ring&source=ln... https://robertogreco.tumblr.com/post/10973003737/idrawnintendo-ive-been-talking-about https://robertogreco.tumblr.com/post/10973003737/idrawninten...
    - voldacar 5y ago
      Delightful!
- msrenee 5y ago
  It's called pollarding. There's also quite a few trees that can be a pain if you want them gone. You can cut them down to stumps and they'll just send suckers up and try to grow again. My dad has been having it out with a lilac bush since I was a kid. He gets pissed off at it - I don't know why as it's a lovely bush - and lops it down to the ground. It's usually back within the year. I know sumac in particular is incredibly stubborn. When you're trying to remove them in prairie management, the general practice is to lop them off a couple inches above the ground and then apply herbicide to the cut. Otherwise and sometimes even in spite of this, they just grow right back. Historically, the prairies would burn every couple years. Native prairie grasses and flowers are adapted for this and regrew, but shrubs and less-established trees didn't fare as well. When humans figured out how to prevent the wildfires, those shrubs and young trees started to move into the grassland. Sumac tends to be one of the first infiltrators. Once a sumac stand is established, they shade out the grass. Larger trees follow and what was once grassland becomes a forested area.

ocdtrekkie 5y ago

I have a weed bush I deal with called buckthorn, and you can cut every branch down to the ground and that sucker is coming back in a week or two unless you get a stump grinder. This document from the Minnesota DNR expresses just how hard it is to kill it: https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/natural_resources/invasives/terrestrialplants/woodyplants/buckthorn_what_you_should_know.pdf https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/natural_resources/invasives/te... Specifically it suggests cutting it to the ground and then, if you don't want to use herbicide, to cover it with a black plastic for one to two years. And it says the seeds it drops remain viable for five.

goldenkey 5y ago
Couldn't you just burn it?
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  I live in a suburban enough area that I strongly suspect that'd be illegal, even if I felt confident I wouldn't burn down the trees I don't want to burn down.
pvaldes 5y ago
Frangula must be unburied but the seeds will return shaped as a pigeon. Native here. Is the host of two nice butterflies and a terrific an totally unexpected substitute for conifers. Many people would mistoke it by a small Cypress.

colechristensen 5y ago

There is an old method of forest management which I can't immediately remember the name of which does exactly this, cut down trees to their stumps and let the new growth build up for a number of years and repeat.

papercrane 5y ago
Sounds like you're talking about coppicing. Some tree varieties will continue to produce young shoots from the stump, and those can be left to grow and harvested.
- Balgair 5y ago
  On the Pacific Coast you can see this in action with redwood 'fairy rings'. The old redwoods got chopped down and then the roots sent up shoots in a ring about the stump. It all grows into pretty big ring of trees. Great for making forts in as a kid. Tall, hard woods. Great smells of the dank forest floor and the tannins of the redwoods. Birds twittering, squirrels barking. Dust, duff. Your imagination running buckwild about ancient castles or being an ewok. Mom calls at dusk for dinner, red spaghetti and bugjuice. Coolness creeps in and the scrubjays squawk at another. Just dark enough for flashlight tag. And running through church columns in twilight and you never get tired and you never get old. And everything is perfect. https://www.google.com/search?q=redwood+fairy+ring&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjPitzdm73wAhVDOs0KHeodC_sQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1362&bih=649 https://www.google.com/search?q=redwood+fairy+ring&source=ln... https://robertogreco.tumblr.com/post/10973003737/idrawnintendo-ive-been-talking-about https://robertogreco.tumblr.com/post/10973003737/idrawninten...
  - voldacar 5y ago
    Delightful!
msrenee 5y ago
It's called pollarding. There's also quite a few trees that can be a pain if you want them gone. You can cut them down to stumps and they'll just send suckers up and try to grow again. My dad has been having it out with a lilac bush since I was a kid. He gets pissed off at it - I don't know why as it's a lovely bush - and lops it down to the ground. It's usually back within the year. I know sumac in particular is incredibly stubborn. When you're trying to remove them in prairie management, the general practice is to lop them off a couple inches above the ground and then apply herbicide to the cut. Otherwise and sometimes even in spite of this, they just grow right back. Historically, the prairies would burn every couple years. Native prairie grasses and flowers are adapted for this and regrew, but shrubs and less-established trees didn't fare as well. When humans figured out how to prevent the wildfires, those shrubs and young trees started to move into the grassland. Sumac tends to be one of the first infiltrators. Once a sumac stand is established, they shade out the grass. Larger trees follow and what was once grassland becomes a forested area.