A Very PoplarGarden Mulch

Dateline: 16 March 2016

I have a few poplar trees in my woods. They grow straight and tall, then a wind comes along and breaks the tops off. It happens sooner or later with all of them, and that's what happened to the tree in the picture above. The end of the tree in the foreground is where the top broke off months ago. I cut the tree down at the other end a couple weeks ago.

Poplar is a soft wood that isn't good for home-heating firewood because it burns so fast. I have quite a lot of it cut up and under a tarp to use when we boil maple syrup. I have enough. So what do I do with a tree like that?

Well, I was watching David The Good's movie about composting last weekend and I got the idea to use the tree as a compost around my elderberry bushes.  So I cut the trunk in 33" lengths and split them in half...

Then I trucked the halves to my garden...

I have four elderberry bushes. A T-post is by each one. There is a permanent ground cover fabric on either side of the bushes, spaced 30" apart. I decided to layer on some leaves (worm food) before putting the poplar chunks down...

In this next picture you can see the bushes all poplar-mulched...

Cutting that wood, splitting it, and carrying to my truck tuckered me out more than I expected. I probably won't be using poplar mulch elsewhere in my garden.

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I kept one piece of the wood for something else. Something I've been wanting to do with a chunk of poplar tree for a long time. I'll put that chunk (below) in my shop for a year, or two, or three...

Eventually, I hope to carve a poplar dough bowl with that piece of wood. Just like Mr. Chickadee has done in the picture below. Check out Mr. Chickadee's web site. I like the stuff he does.

Some people have "bucket lists" of things they want to do in their life. Go Bungy Jump in New Zealand. Swim at the top of Victoria Falls in Africa. Stuff like that. But me...  I want to carve a poplar bowl.  Someday.