Clearing for a house lot.... How do you decide which trees NOT to cut?

[Piston]

I will be starting to clear my land in Central NH in a few weeks.  The section that I will be clearing is about 2 acres and is currently unmaintained forest land.  It is mostly pines about 10"-16" DBH, as well as mixed hardwoods right on the edge of the pine stand.  There is a stone wall separating the pines and hardwoods, and we intend to build a home on either side of this stone wall, not sure which yet. 

I will be clearing with a John Deere 410 and my little 45hp Kubota with grapple.  My wife and I want an open site, but we don't want it to be 'sterile' in a sense where we knock down every tree in a 2 acre area, and then immediately go to thick forest again. 

So, how do you guys decide on which trees to leave?  I had the county forester up on the land a couple years ago and he gave me some tips which I will go by, but I am curious if you could all give me some input based on your experience. 

One thing is for sure, we both hate raking leaves, and I don't want any trees close enough to the house to fall on the house, so that narrows it down a bit.  I was thinking of picking a few larger 'clumps' of trees and leaving them, and then taking some time to see what the lot looks like, and decide if we want them down or not. 

I was thinking of keeping some hardwoods to the south of the house to help shade in the summer and allow sun in the winter. 

What are some considerations you guys think about when clearing a forested site?  It's tough to picture what the site will look like without trees in the way, when it's currently covered in trees. 

Here is a general sketch of the land layout, tough to see, but it came from this thread and it's all I have so far, I'll try to post more pics tomorrow.  (The white box is the 2 acre area we would like to build on)
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=52393.0

[Tree Feller]

I also built a home on two acres of mostly hardwood trees...Dogwood, Post Oak, Hickory and Elm with several Eastern Red Cedars, too.

I cleared out the trees from the building site and the drive. I left most everything else.

Over the 14 years we have been in the house, I've had several trees die and have removed a few others. A 30' x 20' woodworking shop took out some. A backyard pool took some others and this winter, I cleared out quite a few more for a vegetable garden.

So, I would suggest leaving more trees than you actually desire. Attrition will take some of them and projects will consume some more. Eventually, if you are patient, you will arrive at a "just right" landscape. Meanwhile, you may have to rake more leaves than you want to.   ;)

[Woodhauler]

Cut all the dripping pine trees! They are a mess around a house/lawn/living area! I left 4-6 on my lawn and wish i never did!

[wheelinguy]

I agree with woodhauler and treefeller, get rid of the pines, leave trees than you think you should.  When we built our house we left a buffer of pines between us and the neighbors property, 6 years in we cut them down and itt was one of the best decisions we ever made.  Shortly after we cut those pines out a wind storm took out 13 or so of the hardwooods we had tried to save.  Then like treefeller we lost some to the woodshop, and every year more come down on their own. 

[thecfarm]

I would cut the white pine too. I have seen too many snap off about 10 feet high on my land. I would try to leave any oak. I try to leave what I can,red oak in my case. Wild life likes the arcorns. I have about acre that there's hardly anything less than 4 inches growing. I keep the underbrush down with a cheapy push mower.I would go through it and cut down the ones that don't look good.

[Magicman]

You are spot on about leaving the trees on the South side.  Hickories and Elms are deep rooted and very unlikely to fall.  Avoid dirt work around any of the trees that might harm the feeder roots.

I would also tend to leave more trees than you eventually want because you could have some unexpected mortalities.  Plus, once they come down, they can't be put back.

[jdonovan]

I'd get a layout from your surveyor on the ground of the house, driveway, drain-filed locations. You know you must clear them 100% so start there... this will also provide open space if you want to have a work area or to act as a landing for logs you want to keep.

Driveway I would clear at least 20' wide.. .I prefer 25-30'. That will give you an edge to push snow on to, as well as have some just off the driveway area to allow cars to pass, and give you some grass on the driveway edges.

House site. I prefer not to have any tall trees very close to the house. I would clear 100% out to about 50 feet around the site. The next 50-150 feet I would take all the undesirable trees. Pines, deformed, diseased, steep leaner, wide crotches, or any trees you don't want getting any bigger than they are.

This will now leave you with a thinned area in the 50-150 range. You and the family will have to decide how much of a forest, how close to the house you want.

Once you decide what you are going to keep, establish an equipment exclusion zone. Put up stakes, and bright rope/flags to keep the builder and his crews out of this area with their equipment. If you don't 'fence' this area off they WILL run heavy equipment in there and a year or two later you'll start to have die off from roots getting damaged during construction.

[Texas Ranger]

What MM said, leave more than you think you want to keep.  Here in Texas in piney woods we recommend leaving twice as many as you really want to keep.  You will lose some in the building process, power lines, water lines, septic lines, etc.  You will have some construction damage as well, barked pines lead to bark beetles.  Barked hardwood lead to rot.

[Piston]

Thanks for the good advice from everyone.   ;D

The hardest part for me now, is to decide what I want to keep!  I've walked around the land a hundred times second guessing where I want to clear.  I keep telling my wife I don't want to take down any of the trees, but realistically I know I have to  :D

I envision the lot eventually having a decent sized lawn to it, with some scattered 'groups' of hardwoods, and I'd like to eventually have a field on the outskirts, sort of along the driveway on the south side of the driveway, although I know a field is pretty far away at this point.  I know I'm gonna have to take down a lot of trees for those things, but it's just hard to "picture". 
My father is gonna help me clear and he's cleared lots before and has a pretty good 'eye' for those things so I'll trust his judgement as well. 

I'll try posting some pics now. 

[DeerMeadowFarm]

Jdonavan gave you the most complete advice here IMHO. First you need to know where your house, driveway, well, and septic are going to be and then clear them 100%. I agree with his driveway width suggestions and his thinning suggestions. Trees that can hit the house should go as well. Remember, you'll most likely live there for a long time; plant trees: the kind you want and where you want them. Make a point of doing so each year; they'll grow faster than you'd think!

[Piston]

These pics are posted in a sense of where the driveway will begin, and ending at where the building lot will be cleared, for the most part anyways  :D



I apologize for posting so many pics before  ;D  Sometimes I go a little overboard with too much information.  I figured the more examples of the trees the better, but I understand how that can make it more confusing  :D  Also, I didn't think of the guys with dial up so I've edited this post. 


I'll leave out the pics of where the driveway will be coming in, since I have another thread on "putting in an 800' driveway" which you guys have answered many questions on already, and helped me a lot in the process.  Also, there are more pics in my album under "land" if anyone wants to see more. 

There are two possible sites that I'm planning on building the house, both within the 2 acre area that I've outlined in the google earth snapshot on my first post. 

They are both roughly equal as far as grade and topography go.  The site to the North of my stone wall is more hardwoods, whereas the site just on the other side is all pines, must have been an abandoned field at one point.  There are piles of rocks that the old farmers have piled up which are really pretty impressive when you think about the lack of machinery they had.  I learned a lot about my land by reading the book "Reading the Forested Landscape", very helpful book for me.

Anyways, the 'more hardwoods' side of the stone wall is where I will start clearing first, as it is my preferred site for now.  Here are a couple pics from that site.



  

 


The other side of the stone walls is where it is almost all pines.



  

  

 

[Andrew Lawrence]

Thanks for ALL the photos.  Keep in mind septic layout, this with house footprint will likely give you a good starting point.

[beenthere]

 :
Would be great if you would pick about 5 of them and interlace some dialogue with each so we get an idea where/what your lot may be cleared. thanks, as it would be easier for us. ;)

[Raider Bill]

In my case I wish I hadn't cleared as many as I did. It was easy to get carried away with the dozer. Hind sight is 20-20 lesson learned but too late.

[snowstorm]

i have been moving dirt for the last 25yrs so i have been asked this question at least a 100 times. for the driveway as least 30' wide. so you end up with a 12' wide road or wider if you want plus slope the edges or ditich. you have to keep the water out of the subgrade. how big will the house be?? full foundation? walkout in it? i always tell them to cut what you think is enought then cut twice as many. the more that are in the way when someone digs for the foundation the more it will cost you. because he may have to move dirt twice. there may be several 100 yards coming out of the ground it has to go somewhere. sometimes you cant dig from bolth sides so you make one pass then move that pile then finish. the south side needs to be  as open as you can get the more sun the better. think of free heat in the winter so lots of windows on the south. that little hoe you have can do some things but big stumps rocks and digging the foundation you might want to hire out. there is a lot more to it than most think. at the very least you would need a transit. i have laser grade control on my excavator makes it much easier

[Ron Scott]

Draft a base site plan to scale including your access road, home, and out buildings with an overlay of your vegetation to determine what has to be removed for proper constuction of the wanted facilities. As stated above remove enough to allow for ease of constuction and site maintenance after construction.

Select "leave trees" to retain site aesthetics and a diversity of fall colors. Consider the trees characteristics of shape, color, texture, size, age, condition,etc. to help in the natural landscaping of your site.

[snowstorm]

one thing i left out.... get the soil test done first.....i assume nh is somewhat the same as maine as to how they do there soil test. make sure you are there when he dose it. and know where your house will be. you dont want to end up pumping the septic up hill. it works fine but costs a lot more

[Autocar]

When we built our house I cut just enough so the foundation could be poured. After I had the house done we had a pretty good thunder storm and I had two trees hitting the over hang of the house so I cut those two. I have a 16 inch red oak four inches off the over hang and will have to cut in in time. We have so much shade that the air cinditioner dosen't kick on till five when the sun can travel over to the septic tank feild. But with just the two of use we don't have much water useage so I planted the leach feild with trees which our thirty feet tall now. One thinfg you want to do for sure cut any large tree that lays in the direction of house second keep the cement trucks on the drive way, don't compact the dirt or your trees will die off. Hardmaple can take alot so keep them for sure. Its a lot easyer to cut them after your house is up, but impossible to get them back if you cut them now. I would keep them all if it was my place  ;D

[2308500]

keep in mind that after you are done thinning, you will want to create some lawn area around the trees that are left

in my experience (20 years) the base of these trees may be at a higher elevation than where you wish your lawn to be in this case  grading will harm roots    or

they will be at a lower elevation than the future lawn in which case bringing fill more than a few inches up around a tree will probably kill it in the next 5 or 6 years.

at least thats the way it works in western nova scotia

i have put in many lawns including my own and this is almost always the case.
in my situation i wound up cutting everything and grinding or removing the stumps from the lawn

[Piston]

I edited my post above so there are less pics for yas  ;D

Thanks for the great suggestions and advice, you've given me some good things to think about that well....I didn't think about before  :D

As far as marking the trees I want to leave, what should I use for that?  If I use spray paint, will it be visible on the tree for years or will it go away after a year or so? 
Should I use ribbon?  That seems like the most logical to use. 

[OntarioAl]

Piston
You have recieved lots of excellant advice.
I live in a rural municipality and the location of my well and the subsiquent positioning of the septic field (down grade to the southwest of the house while the well is upgrade north east of the house) set the location of my home.
Snowstorm is right a gravity operated septic system is the way to go.
Once the water systems were taken care of the positioning of thhe driveway and buried electrical service was easy.
I then decided which trees and their location to my home were retained,
Since I live in the boreal forest I removed all the trembling aspen and balsam fir within 250 ft of my home I retained some mature White spruce and Jackpine to the east and north coming within 125 of my home (looks very park like)
To the south and west it is mainly lawn (septic field) with some planted Bur Oak and Silver Maple.
I have about 2 acres of lawn to keep cut but it keeps it open and airy which helps discourage black flies amoung other flying pests of the north woods,
Hope this helps
Al

[Piston]

I have about 2 acres of lawn to keep cut but it keeps it open and airy which helps discourage black flies amoung other flying pests of the north woods,
Hope this helps
Al

Al,
I've thought a lot about the flying insects issue.  Do you think you get a lot less bugs around the house with the less trees/more grass?  This is also one of my concerns that I actually forgot to post, didn't even think of it until you reminded me  ;D
In the spring time the may flies can be horrible up there, in the summer time the horseflies can be horrible up there, will clearing more trees and planting more lawn help this? 
In some of the things I read, I found that horse flies live in the pine needles on the forest floor, any idea if this is true?

[Holmes]

 You may want to consider the views you can get from your house location. Can you look from the top of a hill, or down a valley or at a mountain?

[Andrew Lawrence]

I like ribbon alot . I have different colors for property line pink,wet area blue, road in red and so on.  Can be adjusted as needed, gives me a better idea as I look at the site from different angles.

[Ron Scott]

Definitely consider the best scenic views when deciding the location of the home, especially if you will be on higher elevations.

I'd also use ribbon, especially in the initial planning since it can easily be removed without leaving a long term visual impact.