Hardwood conundrum

I seem to be spending a lot of time lately trying to get people to understand why the term “hardwood” is so confusing.  

While post-tropical storm Fiona was traumatic for sure, in some ways it did us a favour by sweeping away the results of decades of poor forest management. It also has hopefully taught us some clear lessons about forest ecology, forest values, and forest conservation.

On Prince Edward Island, we have a lot of trees that produce leaves, and while some indeed have hard wood, the wood of other leafy trees can be quite soft. The hardest woods tend to be from our later successional (or older growth) Wabanaki forests. They grow slowly and produce dense wood. This is a good thing to keep in mind—you can’t get strength and fast growth, it just doesn’t happen.  

Species such as Sugar Maple, American Beech, Yellow Birch, and Ironwood are truly hard woods. Red Oak, Red Maple, and White Birch are also relatively hard woods, though a step down from the above list. At the other end of the spectrum are species such as Trembling Aspen, Large-tooth Aspen, Balsam Poplar, and American Elm, which generally have much softer wood—even softer than some of our so-called softwoods (like Eastern Larch).

Presently, there is a push to have our provincial nursery grow more “hardwoods.” The watershed groups are asking for it, the PEI Woodlot Owners Association sees the need, and individual woodlot owners have for years been trying to get their hands on species such as Yellow Birch and Sugar Maple. In addition, there has been a decades-long call for more resources to be spent on “hardwood” management and less on conifer plantations.

We often designate our forest types as softwood, hardwood, or mixed wood stands. But these are often not very helpful terms and just add to the confusion.

The difference is important because our forests are in a state of crisis, but we also have an opportunity to change the way we think about them. Restoring the native Wabanaki forest is not a simple task, but it becomes far more complicated if we use terms that are unclear. For example, if we say we have lots of hardwood in the province, but we really mean we have lots of young Trembling Aspen, Grey Birch, and Red Maple, we’re painting a very different picture than if we are talking about long-lived species such as Yellow Birch and Sugar Maple.    

To be clear, all trees have value—they store carbon, provide food for wildlife, and produce products. But there is a real difference between a tree that can grow for over 400 years, thrives in shaded conditions, and produces high-value products (like Sugar Maple) and short-lived trees that produce low-value products (like Trembling Aspen).

If we are to restore our forests to any semblance of their former glory, it will be on the backs of long-lived and high-value species such as Sugar Maple, Yellow Birch, Ironwood, Red Oak, White Ash, and someday (if we can conquer the canker that affects  these beautiful trees), American Beech, along with appropriate conifers such as Red Spruce, White Pine and Eastern Hemlock.  

That doesn’t mean creating plantations of these species—that would be as much of a nightmare as the single-species conifer monocultures that litter the landscape. But it does mean interplanting many more of each species so that before too long we have seed sources across the province and we begin working with Nature instead of trying to overwhelm it.