Bark House Newsletter: April 2008
Ask The Experts
We invite you to submit an email and have a Highland Craftsmen expert answer your question. chris@highlandcraftsmen.com
Q: What is it about Black Locust that gives it such a widespread reputation for toughness and longevity and makes it the first choice for many applications in rustic home construction? Robert, Banner Elk, NC
A: It is dense and hard. The only harder native wood in engineering tests is hickory. But hickory is not rot resistant. (See Janka hardness test.). Black locust wood has a large portion of uniformly distributed libriform fibers that confers great strength to wood. It is very rot resistant, making it useful in outdoor construction, even buried in the ground, without preservatives. The Jamestown colonists built hovels using black locust posts as their first habitations in 1607. The posts were noted by a visiting English naturalist to still be sound 100 years later. Black locust wood is being studied to find the chemical basis for its remarkable decay resistance. High flavonoid concentrations are important. The term flavonoid refers to a class of plantsecondary metabolites. Flavonoids are widely distributed in plants fulfilling many functions including producing yellow or red/blue pigmentation in flowers and protection from attack bymicrobes and insects. When impregnated into easily decayed woods, heartwood extracts have raised decay resistance to a level equivalent to that attained by commercial wood preservatives.
References available upon request. Marmon Thompson -Bark House® Expert
Bark Buddies
share the space we live in
“Bark Buddies” is a fun way to increase our awareness of the world around us. Trees, animals, flowers, bugs, sun, people...all share the space we live in. They fill our lives and make them interesting. The Bark House® lifestyle invites each of us to breathe in the beauty of our natural world. We invite you to share your discoveries.
Lady Slipper
The first, and most important, thing to know about lady slipper is that almost every article or reference one finds in the literature will have some version of the words “DO NOT DIG”. In other words, forget every notion you had about moving the plant to your private garden. One almost has to be a botanical expert to understand the complicated relationship the plant has to its surroundings in order to move it successfully. That, and the fact that the plant has such a difficult time reproducing itself, makes its existence precarious, and you should not be a party to the continuing decline of this remarkably beautiful plant. Use your GPS to mark the location of the plant, note the date of its appearance, and then return to that private spot next year when you feel the need of the inspiration the flower provides.
It has very long but fragile roots that will not regenerate if broken. Its roots grow only in the top part of the soil. It requires the presence of a certain fungus type called mycorrhiza in the soil. This fungus resides in the plant’s roots. To successfully grow a pink lady’s slipper, this fungus must be present in the soil. It may seem to be successful initially, but may inexplicably die after 4-5 growing seasons. It may have a lifespan of 100 years for a single plant, but the plant may only flower 10-20 times and only produces seed 4-5 times. It may take 17 years for the plant to mature from seed and reproduce.
While you are enjoying the lady slippers, pink and yellow, remember that there are multiple species of other native orchids likely to be in the same environs, if at different blooming times. There are several varieties of fringed orchids, showy orchis, green frog orchid and others to reward you for your efforts and alertness.
Surely the reward for viewing a lady slipper is enhanced by the efforts one makes to locate it and understand its place in the environment.
Written by HC’s Marmon Thompson, as rare and valued to us as the Lady Slipper.
Email Your Bark Buddy Blog to chris@highlandcraftsmen.com. Send images if you have them.
Split Rail Fencing
an American tradition
This Split Rail Fence is over 100 years old. The gentleman pictured has walked this fence since he was just a boy.
Split rail fencing is an original American fence that has been widely used since colonial times. There are many variations of fence styles and the names they are recognized by, depending on the region they originated from. Chestnut was the log of choice from the beginning, due to its ease of splitting and rot-resistance. After the chestnut blight that also affected bark shingle production, locust became the exclusive split rail in the south and cedar in the north. As the informatin above states, locust can last 100 years in the ground with no preservatives. Like all of our products, Bark House® Split Rails by Highland Craftsmen Inc. are produced with the highest quality in mind. Our goal is to provide our clients with a long lasting, consistently manufactured product that is true to the long tradition of split rail fences.
Click here to learn more about Bark House® Split Rail Fencing.
Growing Green
a closer look
“Greening” is a growing phenomenon. Every company that enters this process should be able to explain and demonstrate how their company’s practices and their community action is green. We would like to take the opportunity each month in this newsletter to share one way that we are greening.
HC is a green-friendly company and we are constantly renewing that commitment. In this light, we researched the sustainablity of black locust that we use for split rail fencing, handrails, poles and logs . Resources included US Forest Service doccuments and are available upon request. To read about how Bark House® black locust is a green product, click here.
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