Personally, I'd much rather have a 10 year old dogwood or crabapple or almost any shrub. Not much maintenance on these shrubs and they provide browse and fruit. What do you guys think?

It is not a zero sum game. You can have your shrubs and your fruit trees too and still have room on your palette for speckled alder.

I do believe that Scott's experience is atypical.

-Others that have planted them have not had any semblance of a thick screen. Highly unlikely, therefore to be as successful as it has for Scott.

-The varietal that he got from Coldstream was much more upright than most Tag Alder Swamps in Michigan which are more shrub-like

-He has wet sandy soils and the nitrogen fixation of speckled alder is an advantage.

-If you saw the property in the winter , there is considerable more cover in the summer and fall.

-I would think the catkins are a good source of food for upland birds while the structure creates cover for the birds to be protected from hawks.

-I don't think the maintenance would take more than an hour per year with a chainsaw if it got to shady.

-You can coppice or pollard it. And let the deer browse it.

-Not all properties grow a species well and some wet areas that only have habitat choking reed canary grass could do well to improve the diversity of habitat.

-It is just a habitat tool that grows well in wet areas and doesn't have many needs to thrive. It is friendlier invasive than Autumn olive--which in my opinion has drawbacks when it is already established and used for deer habitat--but that's another story.

 

I would support StevenJ's post.

SAlder are easy to manage. I have absolutely whacked some of mine...taken 16-footers down to 3footers.....but they keep on tickin' and come back with vigor. And the cutting thickens them. Not the trunk but the 'bushiness' of 'em.

I find them easy to cut... a small chainsaw and 20minutes of work can take care of many alders.

..........................

On a side note: I took alder cuttings in November and stuck them in potting soil. Out of 40 cuttings...... I now have 38 growing plants. Am tickled pink over it.

I will summer them in my caged nursery and either this fall or next spring outplant them. (will also take more cuttings next November).

I'm afraid Coldstream has lost a customer.

 

One thing to always remember is that diversity is good thing. That diversity could include different age classes along with different species.


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Steven - you make some good points. Personally I think keeping them from maturing would take much more than an hour a year though. Some of those things were huge. I think Scott said he sold like 1200 seedlings this year and I am assuming he kept all that he wanted and more. If those were all allowed to grow 5 or 10 years that would be a lot of work - not to mention the offspring that they'd produce. I am curious to see if the ones I have planted will start to multiply like Scott's have. We have similar ground.

Fairfax - I am speaking of the strain of Alder that Coldstream nursery sells. Its much larger than what we typically see in alder swamps in michigan.

I figured this thread would provoke some conversation. I have planted a couple hundred myself and am not goign to rip them out by any means. I was just surprised at how prolific they were at Scott's place.

 

No regrets!!!

I think the speckled alder are going to be AWESOME...based on what I saw on BISHS and based on the growth I have seen in a single year.

Picture this...5 years from now a tree. Within 10 a nice tree that is surrounded by thick alders.

Overhead cover. A hard back wall. Visual screen. This = what? While I wait for the alders to mature...a little Egyptian wheat buys me time...it provides the visual screen (for bedding).

Last spring, in my airstrip (now a plot) I planted three rows of these things for a screen. Three rows...staggered of course. The twigs where may 18" tall last spring when I planted them and not a single branch. BAM! They are tickling 4 feet tall this spring...IN ONE SEASON. They have spreading branches. By this fall, the neighbor will not be able to see up the airstrip.

The thing I like about these...and I saw this on BISHS...planted singly...it is a great fast growing tree...which also drops seeds and forms the screening edges I desire. I have my cake and eat it too.

But as someone else said...I have other stuff planted too. Diversity!

 

One thing to always remember is that diversity is good thing.

Diversity is a marvelous thing. And speckled alder tips the diversity toward "good species for wildlife".

Makes up for the yellow rocket, sericea lespedeza, poison ivy, canadian thistle,garlic mustard, dogbane, curly dock, cool season grasses. On a value scale, there is worse "invasive species". I don't buy into the fact that all invasive species are a negative for wildlife habitat. I think that people think all invasives are bad have a screw loose for whitetail deer habitat. Deer don't care how invasive it is. Just how nutritious and how much safety it provides.


It would be a privilege if I let speckled alder get out of hand on my place. Cover and wildlife would be enhanced.

It is wishful thinking that it would grow out of hand. It rarely does.
And if it does, it is not a derogatory plant for wildlife.


As for maintenance you might have either too much acreage or too little equipment.

One Silky Zubat and you have enough equipment to hinge cut some speckled alder.

 

About 9 years ago, I planted about 150 speckled Alders out in the open. These trees now are mature, and have spread out wide. If you seen them when they are leafed out, you would see what great screens they are. Some of these have formed large thickets around them. The new saplings around them come in thick, creating a stem density like you get when you cut mature forest. "Long whips racing for light".

When this happens, the mature trees open up underneath. These open areas, are small, just as wide as the tree. These trees are easy to cut, and grow back like nothing I have seen. They adapt tp what environment they are in. Open areas, tall and wide and a good screen, when spaced at 8-10 feet. When they fill in from seed, its more like a re-growth seen when mature forest is cut. I should also point out, I have given away, sold or moved about 6,000 trees from my original trees. If I would not have done this, you would have a differnt environment. Regarding the two Large Alders that I show on the tour, "that have shaded areas underneath." Hundreds of seedlings have been removed all around those trees. That is why it is a bit open there.

I can't express how pleased I have been with these trees. I plant travelways and screens, bedding areas and have them working in 4-5 years. I tried to explain on my tours. I experienced slow growth of shrubs, it was taking forever to get "over the head cover for deer". Then I planted rows of Alder, spaced 15-25 foot wide through my dogwood. Wow, did it take off. Now these areas have tall visual screens subdividing them. You can't even notice the dogwood in many areas.

My land would not be the same without them. I have many great bedding areas, that are not much when you remove the Alder. Silky, Red osier dogwood, High Bush cranberry are all great shrubs. But it has been my experience it takes, 10-12 years to get the size I want. That will be even slower if you have heavy deer browse.

These trees grow fast anywhere, as long as it is not a high dry sand ridge. Growth speed isn't the issue, the issue is not everyone will have a surrounding environment where they spread fast like mine do. For starters, the seeds need to fall in areas where their is sun light, and have some moisture. My brother Terry was over and dug 200 from my land to plant on his place. He gets more every year. They are growing in hard clay ground. Nothing has grown for him like these. He has 7 year old Norway spruce 4-5 foot tall. He has not seen any evidence of them spreading yet. I have another good friend growing them just as fast in clay. There has been about 2,000 - 2,500 taken from my land this spring. We should see the results of these trees in a few years.

 

Gentlemen, please do not think I am trying to trash how any land is managed because I have learned through the years that there are usually multiple ways to reach a similar end result but I always have a hard time fathoming the apparent excitement over speckled alder. Seems to me there must be better species out there that could serve the same purpose in many cases, but who am I to judge.

Granted, it does provide good to outstanding cover in places but it is not a good source of deer food. If it were, my property and in fact much of the UP, would be overrun with very fat whitetails. Grouse might eat some catkins but they much prefer birch, hazel, and ironwood catkins. Not saying grouse do not eat alder catkins because I am sure they do, they seem to eat everything else, but I do not ever recall killing a grouse where I found any alder catkins. I have killed scores and scores of birds over the years with crops full of birch, hazel, and ironwood, especially late in the season but never any with alder. Maybe in some areas grouse do target alder but not any place I have hunted and I have a lot of trail roads that I walk which run right through hundreds of acres of alder. They will definitely eat the herbaceous plants that grow under alder, though. Deer definitely bed in alder but the only game I can recall seeing that really made a lot of use of it on a year round basis was snowshoe hares.....by the ton!

To each his own and for those who like it and or need it to provide cover where nothing else is practical or where it needs to be planted for a fast screen I will offer a wee bit of insight as to how it grows in many areas of the UP. Areas are not all the same, to be sure but as a general rule: 1) On really wet areas, as in wet “muck” much of the year it seems to grow the thickest if left to its own devices. 2) On not so wet areas and areas of good soil it seems to grow the tallest and seems to be self thinning. Often times on these areas I have seen where it creates a park-like effect. Not too many areas like that last forever because other trees and shrubs seem to come in on their own but while they last they can be killing fields for woodcock during the migration. 3) The wood of alder is very soft. A large pair of lopping shears will easily snip off alder up to almost 2" in diameter and shears are quieter and lighter than a chainsaw. Cutting alder off at most any height will cause it to bush out. Cut at ground level and multiple stems will sprout and grow like weeds. Cut at waist height, about 3' like someone already said, and it will really thicken it up. $.02. FM

 

I have thick bedding areas of many types, but I have one 1.5 acre thicket that has been bedding mature bucks for 3 years. That area has spruce wrapped on three sides, and a thick willow screen on the other. The ground cover is dominated by 2-3 foot deep snake grass. There are mature Speckled alder, "20 foot tall" planted in rows at 8 foot spacing. These rows subdivide the bedding area every 20-25 feet. This creates an environment where a buck can move freely, have screens everywhere. Many rooms. These bucks have their beds under the mature speckled Alder branches. They are the perfect shoulder height. They use these limbs extensively for scent marking licking branches. That is the set-up I used to take one of these deer in early October. If the Alder was growing real thick, the set up would be different. I think the spacing, small room effect, exterior screens are key for this area. It's a buck magnet, bedding area. These alders are great screens spaced like that. This year I dug up all the young alders growing in that area, to try to maintain the same "look" for as long as possible.

 

Bish...:help:

I know you transplant quite a bit of speckled alder...how big can you go as far as moving it? 3ft...6ft...larger? The property I am buying has it everywhere (numerous thickets and even growing on higher ground in the woods) and since it is so hard to come by as seedlings I may as well rob peter to pay paul so to speak! On the larger trees can I just dig it up with a shovel and get as much of the root system as possible?

Thanks in advance!

 

I move them all sizes when they are dormant. I had good luck with all sizes, 7 feet is about the largest I have moved.I always bare root them. Some of the larger trees, I have to tie up to a stake. After they tipped after a heavy rain.

 

I move them all sizes when they are dormant. I had good luck with all sizes, 7 feet is about the largest I have moved.I always bare root them. Some of the larger trees, I have to tie up to a stake. After they tipped after a heavy rain.

I was messing around with a few today using the "pull out of the ground" method and they all seemed to break...usually about the spot the seedling goes into the ground. What is the secret technique to prevent this type of damage?

Can you just use a shovel and dig around them like a tradional transplant method then move them? Seems like it would work ok as hardy as everyone says SA is!

 

When I dug mine this year Scott showed me an easy methon. Simply put a spade shovel in the ground next to the alser, about 4 to 5 inches from the base and then pry up. You can then pull thexalder out bare root. This was in wet ground and we dug 100 in about 30 minutes.

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I don't think Scott's property looked bare anywhere? I remember the big alders but not much park effect under them. You do bring up a good point though about what they will turn into over time? Who really knows, but that's the beauty of it. Habitat work is something that is never ending and, with a little elbow grease, can be made into anything we want.

I agree w StevenJ 100% above. You need to find out what things work best for your property/situation. The strain Bishs has are def different than any other around. If you don't like the looks of things in the next couple years, start cutting/changing it! It will take very little time out of your habitat schedule if you keep on it!

I am very excited to add alder, along w other things, to some of my open areas where nothing grows well. I will be glad if I have a problem with them growing too fast.

 

I didn't envison park like at Scott's. Remember it was winter and it is good for upland birds. Nothing a Silky saw can't coppice.

 

Hey buktruk....

Thanks...that makes sense. I trashed three today giving the pull method a try. I went for a walk this evening across the road from my current home (closing on new house and 40 acres next month) and all I did was look for speckled alder seedlings. This could get out of control!

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My view of the "mature" trees on Scott's is that I can't think of another single species that would support a hang on tree stand in such a short period of time.
I too observed that there was nothing growing under the canopy of the SAlder, to which I say, so what. These trees grow fast and plentiful and just because you plant and nuture them doesn't mean you can't cut them eventually.
If there's one thing that we've learned, or should have learned, from the logging boom is that deer love early successional growth and if we can create and maintain that habitat, we can continue to attract and hold whitetails.
The area that I am employing the SA from bishs is on my south line in my flood plain. These trees will not be allowed to mature and canopy, they're there for screening and to create a high stem density. I also have RO dogwood and black willow cuttings growing in the same area along with the regen from the ash, elm, black walnut, and maple hinge cuts.
The deer love the screen and when water level permit, they'll bed in it.