Now is the time to mow, or cut, or trim.  At least for things like re-sprouted barberry and burning bush.  It is too late in the year for them to regenerate successfully, but too early for them to have gone dormant.  Unlike many of the native plants, which have realized it is fall; and, if cut now, would simply wait for spring quite happily.  The barberry will re-sprout next year; but by cutting it right now, it has essentially lost an entire year.

So, despite the poison ivy still being exceedingly green, I spent a good bit of the afternoon clearing around the sugar maple sap line* along the lane and along a neighbour’s boundary line.  I have some orphan arborvitae, originally destined for the highway, that may go along that neighbor’s line.  It is not a problem, yet, but it might be in a decade or so; better to plant it now and have the privacy screening in place.  As for the highway, well!  It can’t get much worse!

*This is called being a good steward…my trees, my land, his lines.  Would he be unhappy if I didn’t cut the barberry? No.  Does it make his life easier? Yes. Is it, in the long run, also good for the land? Yes. Prior to that line being there we were essentially ignoring it.  Now, I have selected some young maples for the next generation, the invasive shrubs are under control, and we are beginning to see some regrowth of wider variety of shrubs/grasses/flowers.  There is no financial gain for us, except for a few gallons of free maple syrup. (and I doubt he makes much extra cash)  But the land benefits.