girdle a basswood

[upnut]

I have 2-3 ugly basswood, 18-20 DBH, in a nice stand of smallish hard maple that need to be dealt with. Felling in any direction would result in damage to HM that I would like to minimize. Would girdling the basswood be a viable alternative? The idea would be the basswood would rot quickly, coming down in pieces causing less damage, and release the HM to grow in the meantime. Directed damage vs let nature take its course.....

Scott B.

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Girdling is a good choice in that situation you describe.   Foresters often mark trees for girdling in the jobs I cut.  Just make sure your cuts are about two inches deep and go all the way around and meet because if you leave any path at all for the tree to feed itself it will take much longer to die, if it does.

[BargeMonkey]

We typically will make 2 complete passes all the way around, 6-12" apart. I'm not a fan of doing it, but it's basswood so it will probably fall apart pretty quick. If it's in a spot where other people go thru I would put some paint on it. 

[AndyVT]

I have been girdling white pine for decades and most have been dead for years and are still standing.
They do shed limbs over the years and when they do finally fall they are fractionally lighter and smaller 
I suspect basswood will die and rot more quickly.

[ehp]

we use to do this 30 years ago, its banned now as its unsafe for people to walk in 

[bitternut]

We had a few ( 4 or 5 ) trees so marked in our recent  timber sale. The logger cut them as Barge suggested and they were marked with a large X and a G. They were very old wolf trees.

I tried killing a very large sugar maple wolf tree with a single girdle cut. Did not work out and 2 years later added a second cut about 6 inches below the first cut. That tree is still standing but it is almost completely gone now. Piece by piece for the last ten years with no harm to neighboring trees which have filled in the space occupied by the maple.