Luckily managed to arrive at such a place recently. Beautiful! Besides all the wild blackberrys growing over too many spots.^^
Sounds like a real great idea, such areas are highly important and come with a lot of life along inside. :)
Also had similar stuff on my mind, but in germany stuff like this is a little more complicated and if somewhere worldwide - you are in need of someone reliable taking proper care.
But if you want real wildlife, i would not use woodchips or similar (or whats the plan besides the "grow barrier" in addition to some saved water and some more smaller visitors) at all to be honest. Let it grow, help out a little, but in the end it's always - the strongest survives. Besides it is mass bleckberry growing all over, then you need to intervene. :D
Also think about trees and their growth => growing shade, maybe influencing the ground and stuff like this.
specifically the flora native to the area
100%!
My plan was to spread seeds, help out a litle and just let it happen. But i recommend you to cut down some growing trees if you want real diversitiy since if they are many and grow big enough, there will be not much diversity left on the ground. If you're interested - will post some details in this term about this place soon, since here nobody did take any care for at least 8y at some places, up to 30y+ at others.^^
What about the cost for 1 acre of land at your place?
Yeah doing a conservation project has always been an interest of mine. As for the wood chips, it would be mostly help to give the small trees and bushes a chance to get established. Maybe its not needed, but its possible for some plants to over grow them before getting big enough to deal with that. Maybe I wont need it but its hard to say for sure.
We would do a mix of grasses, flowers, and some bushes and tress. So there will be a mix of a little bit of everything.
Hah I know what you mean about those wild blackberries.. those thorns tear ya up.. and will over grow everything.
If you want to put some work in it, just rip stuff apart surrounding what ever you want to be safe, place the "weeds" you tear off on the ground surrounding the plant, will also gather additional water (dew) and hold water as well plus - it is free.^^ Besides it is more "airy", at least most of the time. :D
I know a big "chokeberry" (in german it sounds way more enjoyable^^) field close by and they never water it, at least the most part of the about 5y old field.
Drifting a little apart, but maybe this will leave you with a nice idea for somewhere else or in smaller dimensions for this area:
Everything that is done there in terms of "watering" is simply to use a kind of tiller to turn over the soil. In the end, the turf is folded like an "L" towards the plants (done from both directions), so that the dew collects there and the water stays in the soil for longer as well. Then, two to three times a year, they go along the plants and tear off or keep short everything that is not aronia. The torn-out stuff is also loosely spread around the plants to collect and hold even more dew. At least in our regions this is absolutely enough for these, as well as for many other plants. Right next to it there is a comparison field using drip-irrigation - the differences in terms of yield are minimal, if they exist at all.
But i can also understand if you use woodchips, way less work and yea, in 2y they will be most likely be gone anyways. xD
Wish you good luck, waiting for updates. :)
Yea... those blackberries and their lovely torns... but at least i could harvest a lot this year - thought it would be great to harvest them, before cutting down at least most of it.^^
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