In article , (Bill
Oliver) wrote:

In article ,
paghat wrote:
But a deciduous red huckleberry, a stunningly beautiful shrub
with the tastiest possible fruits, really won't thrive in any other garden
setting except in a stump, so having the stumps is potentially a rare
opportunity instead of something to be shut of.


The previous owner of my place seems to have half-heartedly tried to
burn out a couple of the stumps in what is now my back yard. They
are part unburned wood, part charred. Can they be used for this?

billo


I don't think the percentage of charred wood would change a thing for
huckleberries, so long as there is enough left of the stump to be
decaying. Its the super-high amount of beneficial fungus in the slowly
decaying stump that huckleberries need & which they don't get without a
stump or deadfall or some rotting tree-roots to grow on, near, or amidst.
I half-buried fireplace rounds for my huckleberries, but softwood
fireplace rounds last only about four years; a real stump should keep the
huckleberries happy for a decade. When the stump is completely decayed the
huckleberries will decline unless a rotting bit of log can be shoved in
among the shrubs, or a lot of fat limbs pounded in the ground near their
roots, but nothing works quite as well as a real stump.

-paghat the ratgirl
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