This was a pile of gorse that my wife and I had PULLED OUT (that’s a different story). We had had lots of rain so it was soaking wet. I had fanned the little flame with a piece of cardboard but it kept dying back. Then I remembered my battery-powered leaf blower. Hahaha. It worked VERY well. I was almost done burning when I thought I should shoot some video.
Where did the gorse (Ulex europaeus) come from, you ask? The gorse, as well as the name of our town of Bandon, Oregon actually came from Bandon, IRELAND in the 1890’s.
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On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 6:09 PM Adventures in Natural Beekeeping wrote:
> solarbeez posted: ” This was a pile of gorse that my wife and I had PULLED > OUT (that’s a different story). We had had lots of rain so it was soaking > wet. I had fanned the little flame with a piece of cardboard but it kept > dying back. Then I remembered my battery-powered” >
Hello Pat and Sue, this question applies to the “other story” regarding the gorse that you both PULLED OUT. I have a tiny gorse plant that I grew from a seed, the only survivor out of a handful and a remembrance plant about the coastline where my mother lived. I only have it still in a plantpot because of reading negative things about gorse and fire risks and the unrulyness of it… All bad press I’m afraid. You two have had it in the garden and have also pulled it out… Should I just keep it contained in a plant tub do you think? Bees are still doing fine in our garden/field/going to build a house project.
Hi Lindylou, If you have your gorse contained in a plant pot, it’s probably okay. Our gorse was brought over from Bandon, Ireland as an ornamental living fence according to the Gorse Profile link. But as happens sometimes when you transplant a species, it went bonkers. Our climate was ideal for it to flourish and spread. It grows tall and wide and is difficult to eradicate. We are trying to rid it from our property, but since we WON’T use poisons, we have to do things the hard way. Uh, we never grew it in our garden, but birds drop seeds and by the time you notice the gorse, it’s grown as high as a tall man. It’s an oily plant that can catch fire easily on a hot September day as what happened in our town of Bandon in 1936. I’ve included a couple of links in the above post explaining it further as well as some bees pollinating gorse videos. Speaking of bees, mine are no more. Long story short, cranberry bogs get commercial hives, commercial hives come from almond orchards. Almond orchards get bees from out of the area that bring diseases. When I found out that most of my swarms were coming from the cranberry bogs, we decided we didn’t want to possibly spread diseases to the native pollinators by keeping honey bees. We still grow lots of bee-loving flowers and have turnips and kale growing this winter to flower in early spring for any bees that want to partake.
That was a good bit of lateral thinking!
We are not allowed to burn our garden rubbish for the past two or three years. We have a lot of trees and bushes to cut down and that must take perhaps twenty or thirty trips of a trailer to the dump. Work out the gas that takes just to dispose of the waste in an “ecological” fashion. Amelia
Hi Amelia, Ya know, I had cognitive dissonance over whether we should burn in place or burn gas taking it to the county dump. (Should I stay or should I go…to the dump?) For a while I was a ‘regular’ at the dump until I found out that they burn the waste there. If they burn the waste there, what is the point of me burning gas to get there? We waited until fire season was over, of course, and then torched it off.
On a different note, my wife says she’s surprised anyone from Europe would write to us because of our embarrassment of a ‘commander-in-chief.’ My humble apologies and hope it’s over sooner than later.
Beauty of blog families I suppose c in c has no influence on us rank n file Luff & Confustications from us Cloggies
Also very sad that your hard work and beautiful efforts for your bees have come to this. Have your log hives found good homes?
Gorse is not my friend!!!