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I really don’t understand what you are saying. Nature makes forests naturally that are great to visit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession htt

I really don’t understand what you are saying. Nature makes forests naturally that are great to visit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession

Loughla 5y ago
The timescales involved in that are not realistic for a memorial garden. No family in the world is going to be okay with consigning their dead relatives to a patch of scrub brush, brambles, and half-dead and diseased locust trees.
- codingdave 5y ago
  Is that what your forest is? Mine isn't, nor are most of the ones I hike through. Even the patch that we started to let grow wild 15 years ago and have barely touched is simply thicker with saplings and ground cover, not a mess of brambles and sick trees. There are different types of forests, of course - maybe yours has a different makeup of species than the ones near me.
  - Loughla 5y ago
    That's what mine started as, and what most fallow ground around here turns into within the first few years, and seems to want to stay indefinitely. I figured out pretty early on in my life on my farmette that active maintenance and guided growth is necessary for a timescale of anything less than my and my children's entire lives to see the fruit of my labor. So now I have a beautiful woods of native hardwoods, but I am losing the fight to multi-flora rose and grape vines right now because I got lazy last year and didn't mow them. Any ground left unmaintained around here follows the same pattern. Invasive species first (multi-flora rose, honeysuckle, crown vetch, those sorts of things), followed by brambles and native bushes with some fast growing trees (the locust I talked about as well as honey locust, river birch, red cedar, red haw, native honeysuckle, various vines, blackberry and raspberry). That's pretty much where it stays for, well, honestly I don't know. Because any field around me that has gotten to that point in my lifetime is still there unless someone started maintaining it actively. I assume the slower growing trees follow (Oak, Hard Maple, Hickory, Chestnuts, Other nuts), but like I said, in my lifetime, I've never seen a patch get to that point without active maintenance.

Loughla 5y ago

The timescales involved in that are not realistic for a memorial garden. No family in the world is going to be okay with consigning their dead relatives to a patch of scrub brush, brambles, and half-dead and diseased locust trees.

codingdave 5y ago
Is that what your forest is? Mine isn't, nor are most of the ones I hike through. Even the patch that we started to let grow wild 15 years ago and have barely touched is simply thicker with saplings and ground cover, not a mess of brambles and sick trees. There are different types of forests, of course - maybe yours has a different makeup of species than the ones near me.
- Loughla 5y ago
  That's what mine started as, and what most fallow ground around here turns into within the first few years, and seems to want to stay indefinitely. I figured out pretty early on in my life on my farmette that active maintenance and guided growth is necessary for a timescale of anything less than my and my children's entire lives to see the fruit of my labor. So now I have a beautiful woods of native hardwoods, but I am losing the fight to multi-flora rose and grape vines right now because I got lazy last year and didn't mow them. Any ground left unmaintained around here follows the same pattern. Invasive species first (multi-flora rose, honeysuckle, crown vetch, those sorts of things), followed by brambles and native bushes with some fast growing trees (the locust I talked about as well as honey locust, river birch, red cedar, red haw, native honeysuckle, various vines, blackberry and raspberry). That's pretty much where it stays for, well, honestly I don't know. Because any field around me that has gotten to that point in my lifetime is still there unless someone started maintaining it actively. I assume the slower growing trees follow (Oak, Hard Maple, Hickory, Chestnuts, Other nuts), but like I said, in my lifetime, I've never seen a patch get to that point without active maintenance.