Invasive vines and shrubs are what is killing your woods
Vines and shrubs topple canopy trees and stop a forest from regenerating. Free the trees first, then the shrubs, then keep after the seedlings for years.
Learn
The nursery notebook
Field notes on how trees actually work: growth, age, height, damage, recovery and the everyday mistakes that shorten their lives. Written from the ground, not from search results.
Red oaks and white oaks, and where each belongs
How to tell the two oak groups apart, what the split means for acorns, disease and lifespan, and a site-by-site guide to our oaks and the common natives.
Six trees not to plant near a house, and what to plant instead
White mulberry, lacebark elm, willow, silver maple, tuliptree and Callery pear each have a specific problem near a home. A native alternative for each one.
What grows back when a field is left alone
An abandoned field in the East goes from goldenrod to redcedar, sweetgum, tuliptree and black locust in a decade, and to oaks in a century. How to steer it.
Why the range maps are wrong
Most native range maps are hand-drawn 1970s outlines, copied ever since. Why they are coarse, the kinds of errors they carry, and what to trust instead.
Next up
In the works
Five articles in progress, roughly in the order we expect to publish them. Ask for one to move up the list.
- Squirrels, voles, mice, rabbits and deer: how each damages young trees, and the sleeves, cages and pins that stop them
- Leaf and twig mulch beats wood chips: why the litter under a tree is worth more than a bag of chips
- Red oaks versus white oaks: which to plant where
- Transplanting young trees: timing, watering and protection
- Poor trees for urban homes, and the natives to plant instead