Girdling

Taking over property management of a twenty acre parcel of degraded land has opened my mind to many new vocabulary words. The latest word is girdling.

Some of our wooded land is filed with the invasive brush, buckthorn. While we received some grant money to work on getting rid of it, we decided to stretch that grant money as far as it could go. Completely downing larger specimens would take time, meaning it would cost more. So, instead of cutting the larger ones down, we girdled them. Basically, we cut the outer layers of wood down near the base. This doesn’t allow the necessary nutrients to get to the tree, slowly killing it. While it won’t knock the tree down, it will allow us to treat more trees and ultimately make a larger impact on bettering our land.