When we got the first 50 acres of Cave Bluff in 1990, the next winter we tried our hand at prairie restoration and took down a grove of black locust trees at the very top of the hill. We didn't do any treatment of the stumps, we just figured once you cut down a tree it's dead, right?
We soon found out that if you cut down a black locust tree, it will get revenge with hundreds of saplings appearing everywhere, all of them with nasty thorns. Pines and junipers won't do this. Black locust is famous for it. You end up with a thicket of brush that can grow 10 feet in the first year. In the first photo, these saplings are less than 3 months old. In the second, they started last summer and are over 15 feet tall. It's crazy how they take off.
The mature trees make for good firewood, rot-resistant fence posts, have interesting shapes when they get to be 50-60 years old, and have very fragrant blossoms in spring. They are prone to storm damage, however.
Thickets of saplings will eventually thin themselves out, but it can take more than 30 years for that to happen. Below is that area that we clear-cut in 1991. You can see that it looks like a decent woods again. But it takes a LONG time to get there.
Also, black locust is not native and tends to crowd out more desireable species, such as oak and hickory, especially when it is in the "thicket" stage.
5 years ago we had DNR-mandated logging done to take out the mature stands of locust, as well as red pine that was beginning to decline. Of course, we ended up with thickets. We tried manually cutting and mowing for a couple years, but they kept coming back. So, this spring we had a forestry mower come in and grind everything to the ground. The thickets are coming back, again, but our plan this time is to hit them this fall and next year with herbicide treatment that is locust-specific. It seems to be the only practical option. The Wisconsin DNR admits as much. Then, once the saplings have given up, we will re-seed with prairie and woodland natives.
So if you see some dying brush and weeds in various areas this fall and next spring/summer, don't fret, those are areas we are doing battle with, with the hopes of finally winning this thirty years war. We will also be blocking off portions of the trails while treatment is happening.
Happy hiking
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