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Wood Pile Out Back
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Posted by
Lucy810 Flint, MI (
My Page) on
Fri, Dec 14, 01 at 15:22
| When I moved into this home, I guess the previous owner had a tree that she didn't want any longer, AND she didn't want to pay to have it removed. SO..I've got this 10/4 ft pile in my back yard just sitting there. I don't know how long the wood has been there but I know it would cost me a fortune as well to have it removed. My yard is so big I can leave it back there but I would like wild flowers to grow over the wood and cover the old logs.
Any thoughts about silver moss? The bottom line is, I need flowers that I can cut and put in a vase all summer long to grow back there [wildflowers]. Any suggestions on what I should do now??
THANK YOU SO MUCH! I love this website..
Lucy |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| Wood pile? Can't you recycle the wood through the fire place? |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| Are the pieces of wood small and thin enough that you can use them for some kind of border or outline? Or maybe they can be stacked in some way to make a raised bed. You could also use them to outline a path. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| What about cutting holes into the logs and planting flowers in the holes? Eventually these logs will break down and then you might have an ideal place for gardening or composting. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| In my part of the world, people would be happy to take the wood away to use for fuel. A note on the bulletin board of the grocery store would get that stuff removed in a week. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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- Posted by Blue z5b NY (My Page) on
Fri, Dec 14, 01 at 20:42
| Wish you were here. I would haul it away!! |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| How about annual vines and wild flowers such as morning glory, pumpkin, larkspur, sunflower, cleome, cosmos, okra and such? Especially if the wood is old or elm. Not sure what seeds sprout and mature within season up there. You may need to buy plants or start seeds indoors a month before last frost. Oh Yeah, try poppies too! |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| Many people here in Oregon have woodstoves. Call a local charity or church. Often they will haul wood to a deserving person who will burn it. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| Would just like to add that a woodpile provides a safe haven for wildlife so you'd be doing them a favor to leave some of the wood for cover. Growing vines over it would make it even better. Also insects will take up residence which provides food for birds. Just a thought~ |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| Hmmm..you may want to think seriously about letting the pile sit there to rot. That would be a magnet for carpenter ants and termites. Code in my town require wood piles (assuming for fireplace use) to be a certain distance from structures, elevated off the ground, spacers between layers for aeration and covered with a plastic tarp. But then again if the pile is very far down a large property lot maybe it won't be a problem. Something to think about I guess. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| It wasn't the bugs in my woodpile in the old house that attracted my attention: it was the rats. (They are part of nature also.) I raised the woodpile off the ground to make it inhospitable to rats, but I never got over the creeepy feeling I had often as I walked by the site. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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Hmmmmm I actually like woodpiles, they are useful in many ways. My son burns them is his wood stove. I use them in the way some one above suggested, outlining flower plots, or marking a newly planted tree or plant. Sometimes I stack the logs upright to make a little fence type border. When the pile gets dusted or covered with snow, it looks absolutely beautiful. If they sit there long enough to start decaying, sometimes I will add a log or too, to my woodland garden plots to provide compost. I've just used up the last of my existing log pile. Time to get my son to make a new wood pile. I have a tree that needs to come down so it will work out. Also will have him cut some tree rounds to use for stepping stones.
LOL I really do like wood piles. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| Since this is the Winter Garden Forum, I will suggest you obscure it with Jasminum nudiflorum and Cotoneaster horizontalis. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| Depending on the type of wood, you might be able to raise edible mushrooms. Shitake, I understand, prefer oak logs. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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- Posted by wandie 8/Houston north (My Page) on
Sat, Mar 9, 02 at 11:23
| Even though this is a winter gardening forum; it is the spring now..... Sounds like the perfect place to plant gourds. Gourds don't like to be 'tended' to; put the seeds in the ground and do no disturb until the vines have dried up and the gourds are then ready to harvest. You could do many different shapes and crafters usually know of a good use for them; 'gourd art' has become quite popular. I saw a segment on Lynette Jennings (HGTV) where a lady is making beautiful birds with all shapes and sizes, and earning a lot of $$$ at it. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| Place an add in the paper for free firewood |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| I'm surprised at how many of you have suggested using old wood for fire. I also got an old woodpile with my house, but I was told that it is not a good idea to burn wood more than 18 months old. I've used mine along the fence line to keep the dogs from digging out, on each side of a path, and some I've just left in piles. It will make wonderful compost after it decomposes and until then, it's great for the wildlife. Best of all, the chipmunks in the piles entertain my dogs for hours. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| Here in Marin County, Calif, we pay $350 for a cord of wood. Wish I was closer, I would come and get it. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| If you are allowed to burn in your area. Then get a burn permit and burn it! |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| I got rid of an old skunky wood pile by having the town come get it. Our town's DOT chips old wood for mulch. All I had to do was put it out in front of the house-- I did it little by little-- and every Friday they came and took it! |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| ANd we're STILL talking about woodpiles! Lucy - I put out the same post a few weeks ago on Perennials and Farmlife. We inherited an enormous 10x15 woodpile that is prob 15 yrs old and too rotten to burn.The most sensible comments were to get it away from the house - mine is only about 20 feet away, because of ants, rats and mice. It might be nice to give wildlife a home, but we live next to 65 acres of conservancy land - they can move somewhere else. I discovered a groundhog was living under there and raiding you know where. I liked the idea of letting some of it rot away to compost, so I used some as edging in more woodsy beds - but that was so few logs you didn't notice anything had been moved. I tossed some over the hill. I scattered some. I wore long sleeves and pants and 2 layers of gloves because I'm allergic to spider bites. And finally my DH hired a guy for about $200 to haul most of it away in his truck, but maybe you might get some good ideas by reading the many answers I got if you're still plagued with it. See alyrics post. I'm a tree huggin', little chemical usin, animal lovin gardener, but that thing was a monstrosity and an eyesore. The fmr owner just got used to it being there and forgot about it. And we plan to plant some nice rhodies and have a garden bench on that spot now! |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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Wow! I can't believe this is still going! Shelley R, my neighbor has 3 or 4 woodpiles scattered around her property,
some of which are several years old. Old wood will just burn very, very fast! It kinda evens it out if you have to burn new/fresh wood or wet wood. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| Whatever you do - DO NOT burn it in your fireplace! I tried that and did not know there were WoodBees living in the wood. When I lit the fire guess what - the big black buzzards came out inside me house and terrorized the family! Ugh. |
RE: Wood Pile Out Back
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| Shelly--where'd you read that?! It takes a year for the wood to season! |
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