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TheDarkLordChinChin

Der Teufel der lacht nur dazu! HA HA HA HA HA!
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I went round to visit a neighbour today. He's quite skeptical of coronavirus as am I so he didnt mind me coming to visit, but thats not the topic I have in mind.

20 years ago the forestry were planting along his laneway, which is a public road. They were going to plant sitka spruce right on the roadside. He came out and told them it is illegal to do so (which it is), there has to be a gap of 60 feet between any sitka plantation and roads/water. They normally get away with crap like this in less populated parts of the country. Anyways, he gave them a few hundred southern beech that he had bought. He didnt charge them anything for it, under the agreement that once mature he could cut it for himself as they didnt want it for a production crop.

After 20 years these trees are 40-60 feet and up to 3 feet diameter. The wood is like normal beech, hard as rock and great burning. The only problem is they dont have a great root system, but thats fine once you have somewhere sheltered to plant them.
I have never seen this tree anywhere else, it's great firewood, grows fast and seems to be good for the local ecosystem.

I might try and get some, does anybody else grow/cut it?
 
I went round to visit a neighbour today. He's quite skeptical of coronavirus as am I so he didnt mind me coming to visit, but thats not the topic I have in mind.

20 years ago the forestry were planting along his laneway, which is a public road. They were going to plant sitka spruce right on the roadside. He came out and told them it is illegal to do so (which it is), there has to be a gap of 60 feet between any sitka plantation and roads/water. They normally get away with crap like this in less populated parts of the country. Anyways, he gave them a few hundred southern beech that he had bought. He didnt charge them anything for it, under the agreement that once mature he could cut it for himself as they didnt want it for a production crop.

After 20 years these trees are 40-60 feet and up to 3 feet diameter. The wood is like normal beech, hard as rock and great burning. The only problem is they dont have a great root system, but thats fine once you have somewhere sheltered to plant them.
I have never seen this tree anywhere else, it's great firewood, grows fast and seems to be good for the local ecosystem.

I might try and get some, does anybody else grow/cut it?
I wish i had heard of these 20 years ago... I googled it apperently no one grows them in michigan... thnx for the info
 
I went round to visit a neighbour today. He's quite skeptical of coronavirus as am I so he didnt mind me coming to visit, but thats not the topic I have in mind.

20 years ago the forestry were planting along his laneway, which is a public road. They were going to plant sitka spruce right on the roadside. He came out and told them it is illegal to do so (which it is), there has to be a gap of 60 feet between any sitka plantation and roads/water. They normally get away with crap like this in less populated parts of the country. Anyways, he gave them a few hundred southern beech that he had bought. He didnt charge them anything for it, under the agreement that once mature he could cut it for himself as they didnt want it for a production crop.

After 20 years these trees are 40-60 feet and up to 3 feet diameter. The wood is like normal beech, hard as rock and great burning. The only problem is they dont have a great root system, but thats fine once you have somewhere sheltered to plant them.
I have never seen this tree anywhere else, it's great firewood, grows fast and seems to be good for the local ecosystem.

I might try and get some, does anybody else grow/cut it?
They must be "American Beech", which is the most common Beech in North America.
There is no such "Southern Beech" but the 5 most common Beech are...
1) American Beech
2) European Beech
3) Copper Beech
4) Tri-Color Beech
5) Japanese Beech

Great firewood though
 
Nice trees, they have a funny black furry bark. I'm not sure if its the actual tree bark or a symbiotic fungus. They have a very distinctive sweet smell.
Common in NZ and form huge stands.
Lots of the Southern Hemisphere trees do very well here, look at Cordylines they love the climate here.
Edit: Did the leaves look like this?
https://futureforests.ie/collections/trees/products/nothofagus-x-alpina
 
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