Hickory in the park

[montcalm]

https://youtu.be/AONoQy05ZdA

The answer to my question was found here, but thanks for all the previous replies. Champlain valley is the spot.

[EagleCrag]

I have a friend that owns property along Middle Road out of Willsboro and they have hickories on thier property. Not sure what kind.

[montcalm]

I later learned that the black walnut trees poison the ground around their roots, to lessen competition for water and nutrients.

Yup - they have a mild toxin. I believe all plants in Juglandaceae have Juglone, which is a toxin.

It's called allelopathic (or allelopathy) when it's used to control surrounding plants. Other plants have it as well. I know oaks are said to be mildly allelopathic, but it only appears to affect certain plants.

As far as the walnuts, it can affect a number of things. My neighbor has one that borders us and it drops nuts on our property. They don't seem to kill anything although he said he had trouble growing grass near it. It might also be that it has such a dense canopy. It's almost completely dark underneath it in the summer.

[stripperguy]

I had a short row of black walnut trees at our old house...we lived in that house for 35 years and a handful of those black walnuts jumped up along a neighbors privacy fence. (we had 8 neighbors along one of our property lines, none ever coordinated their adjoining fence lines).
We did harvest the nuts, but I don't care for nuts and MDB didn't like them either.
But all of my lilacs near the black walnuts slowly died off...I had 600 feet of beautiful, double blossom fountains of color and fragrance, except for those 80 feet. I later learned that the black walnut trees poison the ground around their roots, to lessen competition for water and nutrients.

[montcalm]

I forgot to ask SG, is the land in the park? I thought you said Colonie, but maybe I don't recall correctly.

[montcalm]

In these parts people really seem to love Black Walnut. They grow well here and of course the wood is valuable.

As a landscape tree, not my favorite. They do provide good shade, but man when they produce a crop of nuts you're swimming in them.

I'll take some nice, boring native maples any day. Silvers aren't my favorite but I think I'd choose one over a black walnut for a yard tree. Sugar or red maples are pretty hard to beat in this area. Not many issues, beautiful and low fuss.

[stripperguy]

MDB and I bought 35 acres with our daughter and SIL going on 10 years ago...
They have many Shagbark Hickories on their side, millions of nuts, OK, not millions but its best to stay away when they mow under those trees.

[jordalyst]

Really hard on chain saw blades.

West side of the park, Jadwin State forest, plenty of hickory.

I have all kinds of hickory on my property in Fort Ann (yes, near the LGWF), especially right close to the house, which is in an old farm clearing of my great-grandfather's. They make excellent firewood but are rough on the chainsaw blade and take three years to dry. I have some ready to go this year, as I logged two years ago ad it has now dried three seasons. A friend of mine calls them butternut-hickory, but the logger and forester who worked on my property just called them plain old hickory.

[montcalm]

What is the typical leaf schedule in LG? I need to get up there in the fall.

I'm assuming due to the lower elevation and species you guys typically would peak in late October?

Our oaks take forever to change - there is a scarlet up the road that is full peak right now. Most our red and whites oaks were peak last week and maples and hickories about a week before that. I think this year is about a week late of typical though.

[dpc34]

East Side of LG has Hickory trees...nice population....enjoy

[montcalm]

St. Regis beat me to it...

There are a few different hickories native to NY. It looks like out in that area you'd have at least Bitternut and Shag Bark, both of which look very different.

Again from what I can gather it seems like LG area up the west side of Champlain retains some of that Appalachian Oak-Hickory forest type.

NY is pretty much a crossroads for a lot of different forests though - in the west, near the lake we have some essence of midwestern forests, our south/central is a mostly a mix of northern hardwoods and Appalachian, and it the coldest, wettest parts i.e. Tug Hill and western ADK we get the hemi-boreal type. And of course all the other small, unique pockets like high elevation sub-Alpine and pine bush, etc...

[St.Regis]

Bitternut hickory? They are a pretty common species of hickory in NYS

[Buckladd]

I have all kinds of hickory on my property in Fort Ann (yes, near the LGWF), especially right close to the house, which is in an old farm clearing of my great-grandfather's. They make excellent firewood but are rough on the chainsaw blade and take three years to dry. I have some ready to go this year, as I logged two years ago ad it has now dried three seasons. A friend of mine calls them butternut-hickory, but the logger and forester who worked on my property just called them plain old hickory.

[montcalm]

I still contend balsam fir is the best smell in the world, but white pine is a close second.

There's a documentary I watched about forest aerosols but I don't recall the name, it was very informative though. There's all sorts of stuff being emitted by trees.

[St.Regis]

Exactly. It's aromatherapy at its finest