The Hospital was most gracious to add our name to the Marble Monument
commemorating the event. The Veterans Memorial Bench is the original design
that has been built by the VFW and installed in parks nationwide going back
to the Spanish American War of 1898. The VFW asked us to make a couple of
these benches a few years back and since then we have agreed to build the
exact replica and forward 10% of the proceeds for each Veterans Memorial
Bench sale to the VFW office in Kansas City, Missouri. It’s a beautiful
bench historic bench designed to last for many decades. You can see the
Veterans Memorial Bench on our website at:

http://www.oldgrowthagain.org/bench_vfwa.html

The VA system is under much stress these days dealing with the injured from
two on-going wars plus the veterans of prior conflicts. Our donation was
small yet the thank you was huge. If you’d like to help out the Veterans,
the VFW Foundation can be contacted at:

VFW Foundation
406 W. 34th Street, Suite 514
Kansas City, MO 64111

There’s a wonderful article about Stuart Schroeder’s plans to create an interpretive historical farm at Stone Farm in Santa Rosa, above the Laguna de Santa Rosa. Stuart’s Percherons help us with our horse logging, and so we’re delighted to see his excellent work in the news.

With the autumn sun ebbing in the west, two Percheron draft horses pulled a 1930s-era manure spreader across farmland on a rise above the Laguna de Santa Rosa.

It was a scene that schoolchildren might one day observe at the city of Santa Rosa’s Stone Farm, the planned site of a center for visitors wishing to view the Laguna and to learn about ecology and the agricultural past….

Here at Old-Growth Again, we have two great draft horses helping us with our forest restoration work. These beautiful animals can assist with the harvesting and thinning work, without damaging the soil and standing trees, the way a big machine would do.

It’s great to see efforts underway to preserve and promote our connection to nature and to our agricultural past. It’s especially important for our children to experience “the way things were”… and still are in some quarters.

Click to learn more about Stuart Schroeder and his wonderful Percherons.

In 1978, the Redwoods National Park in N. California had a large swath of over-logged lands added to the original old-growth park. Congress added the cutover lands with a caveat: All roads should be closed and filled in and the forest had to be restored like the old-growth around it.

With a large budget for restoration, an amazing transformation has taken place over the last 30 years. It is the largest example of full scale restoration in the Redwoods. It can be done.

But even without large budgets, restoration of some or most of the old-growth characteristics of cut over forests can be accomplished in decades—not centuries. Most forests in the U.S. have been cut at least once. For example, 96% of the Redwood forest has been cut.

Old-Growth Again manages 700 acres of average quality forests that had 95% of the Redwood volume cut in the 60’s. By the mid 90’s, the forest had too many hardwoods (uncut when the land was harvested) and endless young trees of average to poor quality. Instead of about 80 to 100 trees per acre of all sizes and ages, we inherited over 1,000 mostly small and suppressed trees per acre just waiting for a fire to set them off. Most were dying or going to die from a lack of growing space.

The roads were leaching soil into the streams. Poorly constructed roads were collapsing in the winter storms. You couldn’t see a foot in front of you because most trees had grown low lying branches that were in your face. It was the furthest thing from the cathedral-like open spaces under an old-growth forest canopy.

We started in 1995 by thinning out the poorest quality trees and the over-represented tree species (mostly hardwoods and some Douglas-fir). It was an acre by acre “hands-on” thinning from below. A couple chain saws, manual loppers and a pole saw is all we used. We fixed the worst erosion problems by adding lots of natural structure to the soil and thinned most of the lower branches away to lower the fire hazard and open up the understory. It took two men 3 1/2 years working 2 days per week to finish the first 40-acre thinning.

When complete in 1999, a strong contrast with neighboring parcels was obvious. The neighbors noticed, the government noticed, our friends noticed. We began to receive requests to work on neighboring lands and modest financial offers to help buy nearby parcels and restore them. A portable mill was purchased to mill some of the downed material and a furniture company was born. In the last 9 years we’ve grown to manage 700 acres and thinned and planted nearly 300 acres to date.

It will take another 5 years to complete the first round of thinning and planting on all the acreage. But, the thinned and planted lands are already significantly transformed. If we never did anything else, the forest will grow back to Old-Growth Again with good spacing, significantly restored species composition, improved tree quality and partially restored soils. The fire hazard has been reduced, wildlife habitat improved and the forest opened from below and closed from above as it should be. (For example, birds can now fly through the forests where before it was mostly an inpenetrable maze of branches and dying trees.)

If the thinning, planting and soil building is repeated two more times over the next couple decades, the forest will return to being multi-canopy and full of large mature trees with the general structure of the prior stand essentially restored. Then the passing decades will add the larger old-growth trees whether or not the land is managed again. And, this is after yielding a modest timber harvest each entry to help pay for the restoration.

It doesn’t take a lot of money to restore forestland if you are willing to do the work yourself. It does take a lifelong commitment to getting it done in balance with nature. If you own a few acres and want to spruce them up a bit or restore them fully, take a look at the links below.

The link below shows a typical regenerating young Redwood grove 30 years after heavy logging and before being thinned. Next to it is another typical young Redwood grove after thinning. Startling before and after. The work in the “after” photo was done by one person in one full day with a chainsaw and a pole saw. A lot can be done on any forestland if the owners want to put the time and energy into it:

http://www.oldgrowthagain.org/befaft.html

To read more about forest restoration and how to duplicate our results on any land, please visit:

http://www.oldgrowthagain.org/sustainable.html

Or, our 8-minute video shows the process in action:

http://www.oldgrowthagain.org/video.html

As always, thank you for your continuing financial support. If you have questions or comments, please let us know.

A customer asks:

We prefer not to stain or finish the furniture so it will weather.
Is it still “forever” furniture or will it deteriorate?
If it will deteriorate, how long do you estimate it will last?

We are interested in the four-foot octagonal table with attached seats.

Thanks,
[customer]
Flagler Beach, FL

My response:

Thank you for your email. We over build our furniture so it will really last. If you don’t seal or stain it, it will last just as long. It just won’t be as pretty. It will dry out relatively quickly and silver in just a couple months. It will still last for decades.

If you seal it, it will fade over a couple years (the surface color) and will dry out slowly. You’ll still get the weathered look, only gradually. I recommend the sealant. Plus, we do it at no extra cost.

But, either way, it is forever. The wood will not decay. Now, if your puppy decides to chew it up, then it will not be forever….

Forest fires are a vital and natural part of all western forests. The fires regenerate and balance countless biological processes. For example, some vegetation has been recorded as extinct in areas where fires were suppressed only to reappear after a fire!

The probability an average fire will grow to be a catastrophic fire is multiplied when forestlands are poorly managed. Most of the forests of the west today are young and overgrown. Hot, highly destructive fires feed on the excessive lower limbs, downed woody debris and the suppressed and dying trees of mostly young forests.

A labor-intensive program of thinning suppressed trees and lower limbs of standing trees combined with lopping and scattering the excessive woody debris lowers this dangerous fuel level.  Lower fuel levels limit the opportunities for a normal fire to become a devouring dragon.

Thinning is central to the Restoration forestry we’ve been practicing since 1995. Thinning mimics many beneficial effects of mild fires and is a proven proactive solution to the growing fire catastrophies we have in the western United States. As our work grows over the years, we hope to make a significant contribution to fire hazard reduction in our neck of the woods.

To learn more about thinning, fire hazard reduction and basic restoration forestry practices that are applicable to forests anywhere, please visit our forest restoration page at: http://www.oldgrowthagain.com/sustainable.html

For example, forestry is at the center of the climate change equation. Forests sequester enormous amounts of carbon. The larger the trees are in a forest, the more carbon is held per acre.

Since the early 1990’s, a fast-growing “Sustainable Forestry” worldwide movement has been making positive inroads. A handful of organizations now “certify” many millions of acres of forestland as “sustainably harvested”. Standards vary, but, certification requires overall improvements in forestry practices away from the old “industrial models”. Sustainable forestry is helping many forests around the world reverse degradation and in some cases rehabilitate deteriorated stands to a limited degree.

Unfortunately, if you study the numbers, it’s clear even the most stringent sustainable forestry standards will have only a modest impact in the climate change equation. Climate cooling carbon sequestration numbers are easy to calculate for any parcel of forestland. For example, in California’s Redwood forest, several large forestland owners are certified sustainable. These sustainably harvested forests are harvested at approximately 20% of the standing timber volume per decade. An average quality young stand of Redwoods adds about 30 to 35% per decade in net new wood volume. As it ages, this rate of growth slows. If cut at 20% per decade, the young stand will add a modest amount of net volume for a few decades and then level out. The forest will then be maintained as a healthy and robust stand of trees of average size with few if any large or old trees.

If, on the other hand, the rate of cut is limited to 10% in any one decade, the forest will retain more than 3 times the wood volume per acre over the coming century than if “sustainably harvested” at 20% per decade. Forestland managed at this more conservative rate will grow ancient trees again over time and make a large contribution to global cooling. This is the central tenet in “Restoration Forestry”.

We are Old-Growth Again Restoration Forestry. Our mission is to fully restore the volume and productivity of our forestlands and bring back the big trees. Parklands are lovely and necessary, but we can’t turn all the forests of the world into parklands because the cost would be exorbitant. Restoration forestry allows you to cut conservatively while also bringing back the large ancient trees. In our 14th year, our forests are a testament to what can be accomplished. Your furniture purchases through the years fund the hard work. 

To read more about our forestry practices, please go to: 

http://www.oldgrowthagain.org/sustainable.html

Teak is now the most widely used outdoor wood in the U.S. with a well deserved reputation for durability in any outdoor weather. It’s an excellent choice for outdoor furniture or structures if you want it to last.

Teak sold in the U.S. is almost exclusively plantation grown in Central and South America. These plantations grow teak in rows and harvest in 20 to 40 year rotations in most cases. The highest quality teak plantations have 60 to 80 year rotations, but they are a very small minority. Teak is marketed as a “sustainably harvested” alternative to exotic wood’s taken from rain forests. The teak industry is large and spends millions annually to market this enviromental angle. It’s part truth, part fiction.

The truth is teak does take pressure off the native forests as a source of good quality wood. The fiction is a significant percentage of these plantations are grown on lands that were once forests. And, teak tree farms are not native to the Americas. They replace native biologically diverse lands with monoculture that provides minimal habitat for any type of wildlife.

So, it’s a mixed bag with the teak.  Better than logging the Amazon, but not ideal.

What about Redwood?  Well, Redwood was the outdoor wood of choice in the U.S. for most of the 20th century. Like teak, it is a beautiful wood with an excellent reputation for outdoor durability. It was available nationwide and used for anything outdoors until the early 1990’s. But, the Redwoods were overlogged and in 1990’s lumber production collapsed to 1/3rd the levels of prior decades. Redwood mostly disappeared from the east coast and central states.

Today, Redwood is available mostly in California and some other western states. The overall quality has dropped because the average size of trees being harvested is smaller than in prior decades.

In 1995, Old-Growth Again purchased and began to restore its Redwood forestland. We offer Redwood in 3 grades to distinguish it from the what is on the market today. The young Redwood, our least expensive grade, has a 10-year decay warranty and is comparable to what is mostly available on the market. Our mature Redwood, our most popular grade, has a 20-year decay warranty and is comparable in durability to the highest grades of teak. And, our highest grade, the reclaimed Old-Growth Redwood, has a 30-year decay warranty. It exceeds the climate durability of any plantation grown teak.

It takes centuries of slow growth to make lumber that is almost decay proof.  Only a natural forest can do that. We don’t harvest old-growth Redwood. Luckily many logs were left on the forest floor in the early to mid 1900’s to keep our furniture shop busy for many years. Yes, the logs sat on the forest floor for 50 to 100 years and are still in excellent shape!

Case closed: If you want the longest lasting wood available - go with Old-Growth Redwood.  If you want to help restore native, biologically diverse forests and save money, have your outdoor furniture made from Mature or Young Redwood.

To read more about our forestry practices, please go to: 

http://www.oldgrowthagain.org/sustainable.html

To read more about our three grades of Redwood, please go to:

http://www.oldgrowthagain.org/wood.html

As always, comments and questions are welcomed.  Thank you for your continuing support.

Before planting, we consulted several foresters about the best way to do this. The consensus was to plant at least 200 per acre when the ground was saturated with moisture. We were told to use “plastic guards” so the deer wouldn’t eat the seedlings and to not plant near existing trees. Considering a young stand of trees already existed, 200 per acre seemed excessive. We were told the best ones could then be retained and the rest thinned in future years….

6,000 trees were planted over 3 winters on 30 acres thru Dec ‘01. But, in the woods, you can’t water your trees. So, by December of 2002, while preparing to plant the next year’s 2,000, we counted only 310 seedlings from the prior 3 years still alive! Some had grown a bit, most were barely alive. Our foresters pointed to the long dry summers and said it often took years for tiny seedlings to get established and begin to grow robustly. After 3 years, we realized the experts didn’t really have answers for our somewhat harsh, slightly below average quality site forestlands. We were on our own to figure out how to get the trees to live and grow. We decided to take drastic steps. 

First, we studied which seedlings lived and the few that were growing. The seedlings in heavily shaded areas (next to a downed logged or near watercourses) did the best. Seedlings in exposed or windy areas died or were about to die. Seedlings planted with the ability to catch water did better than those without some obstacle that held water.

Instead of sending another 2,000 seedlings to an almost certain early death, planting was cancelled in Dec ‘02. Instead, the seedlings were transplanted into 2, 3 and 5 gallon pots and placed in a mostly shaded Redwood grove. Over the next year, they were babied with regular watering and stakes to keep them growing straight and strong. Only seedlings at least 18 inches tall and with a healthy root ball (coming out the bottom of the pots…) would be planted from now on.

In Dec 2003, 1,200 seedlings at least 18 inches tall were planted in a completely new way. Using an auger bit attached to a chain saw, holes 2 feet deep and about 9 inches wide were dug. Then about 6 inches of loose soil was thrown back into the hole before planting. After filling the air pockets and tamping down moderately, about 4 inches of duff (leaves, small branches, cones, from the surrounding forest ground) was added to the top of the hole to add insulation from the wind and sun. The trees were planted deep enough so the top of the 4 inches of duff still remained at least a couple inches below the contour of the ground.

Planting this way accomplished 4 things:

1. The loosened soil under the tree made it easier for the roots to grow into the forest soil.
2. The duff insulated the roots to help retain moisture thru the hot dry summer and fall.
3. The larger seedlings didn’t need plastic tree protectors because deer could no longer pull the trees out of the ground if they nibbled off the tip.
4. Planting deep and below the contour of the land left pockets to collect extra rainwater and the roots were kept cooler year round at the added depth.

A few months later, the newly planted seedlings began sprouting new growth. Five years later, over 7,500 of the larger seedlings have been planted this way. Over 85% have lived. While still relatively small, most grow an average of 6 to 8 inches per year at this young age without being watered or cared for in any way. Thousands of young Redwoods averaging 3 ft in height are now slowly restablishing the ancient tree’s dominance in our Annapolis forestlands.

In March of 2008, a couple researchers from National Geographic’s magazine visited. The magazine is preparing its first expose on the Redwood forest since 1964 to be published in 2009. After a 3 day visit, Michael Faye, the lead researcher mentioned no one in the Redwoods was planting trees like we were. He had us plant one tree for the magazine to photograph the process explained above. It was a bit past the best time to plant—so we watered the hole extensively before and after. Hopefully the tree planting notes and photos will make it into the article.

Yes, it’s simple. But, it’s also expensive hard work to plant trees like this. Old-Growth Again plants an average of 40 Redwoods per acre. Yet, many more live than at the 200 per acre rate we initially practiced and they grow much faster. Some seedlings are now over 6  ft tall, while the tiny ones planted 9 years ago are almost all dead or less than 12 inches tall. If planting in average to below average site forestlands, it really takes the extra steps mentioned above to restock the forest with Redwood trees again.

In 2008, OGA will spend $80,000 planting and caring for the nursery. Its a large investment for our small company. If you’d like to get involved, take advantage of one of our upcoming sales for our patio furniture line or come down in December and get down and dirty. Just email us and we’ll let you know when we will be planting.  As soon as we get a couple good rain sets, we can begin. Most planting is done between mid-December to late January.

If you’d like to learn more about our forestry practices, please visit our forest restoration page.

As always, we welcome your comments and questions.