Popple, as I knew it, grows from the roots, not from a seed. When popple is cut down, the roots are energized to create new growth. For the first few years, the growth is very thick, making it extremely difficult to walk through. The picture below shows how thick the growth is. The top most leaves on those spiky branches of popple in the background are 5 feet from the ground. Less than a year since the logging occurred.

Popple is called different things in different parts of the country. Aspen, Quaking Aspen and Poplar are only a few of the names used. BH always referred to these trees as popple, so that’s what I call them. Popple is a soft wood, it works well to make paper. Popple grows back quickly, making it a logical choice for re-harvesting in the future. Popple is easily shredded for transport to the paper mill. When we made the decision to log part of our woods, there were a few factors we considered:

• We found a logger who would agree to take only the soft woods from our land, predominantly the popple.
• The logger would set up in the center of the land. They would have to clear a good area of the stumps that would otherwise remain behind to manipulate trees into the shredder and load the semi-truck. This gave us a central location for a larger food plot, in ground that would have the stumps and much of the roots removed.
• We knew the popple would grow back fast unless we managed the ground, eliminating the roots of the former trees as much as possible.
• With the right equipment, we could create trails through the popple that we kept cleared. We could make trails to the food plots that we would eventually create.
• With trails through the thick undergrowth, there would be parts of the land we could not see well, but the wildlife would also be less able to see us. We would control where the food plots were so we could build our stands accordingly.

We were surprised to see the leaves on the re-growth. The leaves are much larger than the leaves on a bigger, more mature popple tree. We have walked along popple re-growth areas but never paid much attention to the leaves. We always looked at the thickness of the re-growth. Here, I was looking at the ‘heart’ shaped leaves of the new growth. Those are the leaves I expected to see. But if you look at the leaves in the picture at the top of the page, there are leaves on the re-growth that are long and pointed, not roundish or heart shaped. I wasn’t sure what that leaf was. I had to do a little homework.

Using an app called PictureThis – Plant Identifier, it was identified as Black Ash. Reading more, black ash is critically endangered and on the IUCN Red List since 2017. Ok, now I have more to learn. Established in 1964, the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species addresses the conservation of animal, fungi and plant species. The wild population of black ash is considered threatened. If it is black ash, it should do well in the location I found it, mostly sunny, and adaptable to the low ground (likely to have periods of time it is very wet) where it stands. I will need to check on this leaf again, after the leaves are back out this summer. The black ash will grow 40-50 feet and branches out well to provide shade and support bird nests, it is not ornamental and does not provide any kind of food source. We will need to consider leaving these standing as much as we can as we plan out the trails we will keep mowed.