The size of the trunk really shouldn't be a factor.
If it's a 1 inch oak tree, protect it
If it's a 24 inch Norway Maple cut it, burn it, destroy it.........

It sounds like your woodland was originally a hardwood forest til beneficial
fires were kept from killing off non native and harmful fast growing soft
woods which choke off the Oaks and Elms. That's probably a lot of your
undergrowth.

Selective clearing of these trees and annual burning has been returning my
woodland to an oak glade, open and full of woodland flowers in the spring.
Closer in to my house I have done a lot of what Bockman mentioned in his
reply. Especially the hostas! They are great in shade and can be split
several times / year.

--

Barry


"Dave K." wrote in message
...
We live in a suburb of Minneapolis, and the back 3/4 of our backyard is
heavily wooded with 100+ year-old oaks and elms, lots of smaller trees and
saplings, and lots of underbrush.

Although we really enjoy the nature and the privacy offered by the woods
(which is a big reason we bought the house), we wish we could make it more
usable for us to venture into and for the kids to play in. Now there is a
lot of undergrowth and small trees growing in the forest, which makes it
difficult to walk through without getting snapped in the eye by a branch.
Also, because the underbrush is heavy and thick, mosquitoes are
particularly
bad in this area. Not a lot of light gets through the canopy of old trees,
so we can't plant anything back there except for shade loving plants.

We like doing our own planting and landscaping, so we don't want to hire a
pro. However, we could use some ideas. How do pro landscape designers
typically handle heavily wooded areas? Do they simply create some
transition
trees and shrubs (which we already have) where the lawn meets the forest,
and then leave the forest alone, figuring it can't be improved upon? Or
would a landscape designer typically recommend getting rid of all the wild
underbrush and smaller trees (i.e., those with a trunk that's less than 6
inches in diameter) to make it more accessible, and then planting
shade-loving plants, like hostas in strategic places?

We'd hate to cut down healthy small trees, but I'm not sure there's a way
around it (most of our small trees are tall and thin and too big to
transplant).

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, especially from those people who
have made their wooded yards more usable or hired landscape designers to
do
the same!

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