Uses for Cedar?

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gerry100

Minister of Fire
May 16, 2008
743
NY Capitol Region
I'm thinning/harvesting my woodlot. Maple,hickory,Oak,Ash some birch,pine and some cedar.

( lot was farm field I'm guessing 60-70 years ago and let go since)

I've got no problem taking out a pine that's in the way for shoulder season wood , but when I run into a cedar I'm not sure.

When I'm done in a few years I want to leave behind a healthy, naturally diverse woodlot so I'll definitely leave the healthy specimens of cedar and other species ( and the giant pines which scare me).

Sorry for getting windy, Should I consider Cedar heating wood, shoulder wood or is there a better practical use?
 
Fencing.
I met a guy once who told me he was a cavalry officer in WWI. Pretty cool to meet people who can tell stories about things so long ago. I was very young when I met him and he was very old.
And another gentleman who told me a story about an accident he had with his brother when he was just a kid. Him and his brother cut cedar posts up in Adirondacks and with an old model T ford drove loads of cedar down to Glens Falls to sell for fence posts. He told me about the accident they had one night when it was snowing. Rolled the truck over on some old dirt road.
All I could think of was John Boy Walton. lol
 
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Line a clothes closet with it.
 
awesome for starting fires!
 
Build a hope chest...looks terrific, no moths, smells wonderful.
 
Eastern red cedar is excellent for fence posts - as others have mentioned here already. I want to get my hands on some for the frame of a "rustic" wood shed - even set in the ground that stuff lasts a long time.
I don't think white cedar (arbor vitae) is as rot resistant.
Around here though, eastern red cedar comes along soon after they stop mowing a meadow and does not survive well in a more mature forest setting. What we see instead, are plenty of dead red cedar trunks that persist seemingly forever due to its rot resistance.
So I think that even if you left red cedars standing in the understory, they'd probably die off anyway.
 
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Mill it. Build a deck. Split rail fence. Pergola. Arbor. Raised garden beds. Landscape timbers,
Use the scraps for kindling.
I'd feel bad burning a lot of it as firewood
 
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Sure would appreciate if you post the butt end on one of your eastern red cedars. I am not familiar with this species. Is it light weight wood? Red or brown color? Scent? I really don't recall seeing one where I generally cut. Going to keep my eyes open.
 
Good info.

If I have to take one down I'll buck it to post length and lay it on some cross pieces for later use.

Standingdead - I know nothing about the different cedar types but I know that these have survived and a few have grown to 12' dia and 20-30 feet tall crowded with other species., Pics if I remember.
 
Standingdead - there are lots of areas where Red Cedar is pretty rare, and other areas where it is very common. Red Cedar tends to thrive in poor soils and fast-draining soils, and does well in pastures because cows avoid eating it. You might cut firewood in an area where there isn't any Red Cedar and so maybe you never encounter it.

Eastern Red Cedar has flaky bark and the wood is purplish red in the heartwood, light colored in the sapwood. It smells strongly. The leaves are sharp, prickly evergreen needles not very similar to pine needles. The other Cedars you'll find in the east are Atlantic White Cedar - found in swamps close to the Atlantic Coast, and Arbor Vitae, which most people recognize because it is commonly planted in landscaping. Arbor Vitae also grows wild in the east, mostly from New York state north, I think. I can say that I have never encountered wild Arbor Vitae in Pennsylvania, but I have seen it growing wild around Niagara Falls.
 
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I have burned cords of western red cedar. It's great firewood and you've got to love the smell. Our RWC gets to be very large and likes wet areas so it often gets blown over. I will not let it waste away so I cut it for firewood. I own several standing RWC trees over three foot DBH.

It's wood. Burn it.
 
I live on an old farm, and the "woods" behind my house is as you describe, an old farm field that was let go maybe 60 - 70 years ago. It's very heavy in cedar.

I use those that come down as kindling, and even mix medium splits of cedar into the bottom of a normal load, when I've let things die down too far to get going easily again. It burns pretty fast, but lights easy.

I see many old fence posts around the property, all cedar. I would guess some are over 100 years old, and they're in surprisingly good shape.

Warning, if you start thinning out the woods, you'll see cedars coming down at a much faster rate. They really rely on leaning against the trees adjacent to them, when loaded with snow. The guy on the lot behind me made a clearing in his woods, and lost maybe 50+ cedar trees in this year's ice storm, as those around the perimeter of the clearing had nothing left to prop them up, when loaded down with ice. It made a huge mess.
 
Standingdead said:
Sure would appreciate if you post the butt end on one of your eastern red cedars. I am not familiar with this species. Is it light weight wood? Red or brown color? Scent? I really don't recall seeing one where I generally cut. Going to keep my eyes open.
Click to expand...

Here's a pic of some eastern red cedar posts - butt ends. It's also called "aromatic cedar"...think of the bedding for hamsters, cedar chests, cedar closets..that's all the same stuff.

Actually it's really not a cedar, but a juniper, Juniperus virginiana. It's most commonly called red cedar though and it's not related to the western red cedars which are in the Thuja family - like arborvitaes...and they themselves are also not true cedars - which are in the Cedrus family

The Atlantic White cedar, Chamaecyparis thyoides, is also not a true cedar - but is actually a cypress.

I hope this helps to clarify the local "cedars" of the northeast ;)

ERC_Logs.jpg
 
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Hello all. I have some information to ad here - I am probably a young man by comparison to some of you sage gentlemen. But I have had a first-class education in the uses of the cedar tree. I refer to the Eastern Red Cedar. So now, I'll tell you more than you wanted to know.

To the guy that mentioned using it to cook fish, you are thinking about western cedar. Eastern red cedar may not be used to prepare food - it produces a toxin when burned. Plus it would add an off flavor to fish - you would not want to eat it.

Someone mentioned kindling. This is where eastern red cedar excells. My lovely little wife can split it into toothpicks if she wants to, for it is the nature of the cedar to cleave along it's grain.

If you burn this as a main source of heat, it burns exceedingly hot and quick. It is also quick to spark.

In years past, I have bucked many good sized cedars to the sawmill (wwe have 3 in my community) and have cut half round shingles for my house, beams for my shed. I put them 3 feet deep with no concrete. I have old cedar fence posts on my property over a hundred years old. The red heart wood won't rot.

In the Eastern Red Cedar, science has not found this out but there are three color varities including one with purple heart wood.

the have blue berries. They also pass Cedar Apple Rust disease to my yellow apples.
 
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I have burned a fair amount of cedar over the years, usually outdoors in campfires because I love the smell. As kindling it can't be beat, but for shoulder season wood, or mixing with hardwoods in winter, it's decent firewood. No reason at all to shy away from it.
 
You can buy the Red cedar coat hangers from LLBean. My favorites for wool and fur.
So is the aromatic red cedar Eastern or Western red cedar?
And which one has the blue berries that look like Bayberry?
I never knew there was an Eastern Red that contributed to the scented wood products. Like good old No#2 pencils.
 
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Applesister said:
You can buy the Red cedar coat hangers from LLBean. My favorites for wool and fur.
So is the aromatic red cedar Eastern or Western red cedar
Red
And which one has the blue berries that look like Bayberry?
Eastern Red Cedar


These photos are from my back yard, I have about 12 acres of cedars back there.

I never knew there was an Eastern Red that contributed to the scented wood products. Like good old No#2 pencils.
Click to expand...
 
Applesister said:
You can buy the Red cedar coat hangers from LLBean. My favorites for wool and fur.
So is the aromatic red cedar Eastern or Western red cedar?
And which one has the blue berries that look like Bayberry?
I never knew there was an Eastern Red that contributed to the scented wood products. Like good old No#2 pencils.
Click to expand...
I believe the aromatic ceda is the eastern red cedar ....judging from the wood of that name that I have seen in chests ,closets...etc. Western red is generally a better source of lumber and is , or was, available in long, clear knot free lengths. The interior of my house is almost completely paneled in WRC. It's also the cedar used in cedar clapboards for siding.
The blue berries you mention are probably on the eastern red cedar...you might have heard of juniper berries? They're not really berries, but cones that are so densely packed they look smooth like berries. And the eastern red was used for pencils in the past but has largely been replaced by incense cedar.
 
Maybe I missed it ... but is the OP talking about red or white cedar ... seems like most of the conversation is on red cedar.

In any case to the original question ... up here it's nearly all white cedar which makes good kindling and fence posts ... if large enough there is a cedar shake and shingle market and some small mills will use them for lumber.
 
firefighterjake said:
Maybe I missed it ... but is the OP talking about red or white cedar ... seems like most of the conversation is on red cedar.

In any case to the original question ... up here it's nearly all white cedar which makes good kindling and fence posts ... if large enough there is a cedar shake and shingle market and some small mills will use them for lumber.
Click to expand...
The OP never clarified which cedar but since the woodlot is on abandoned farm land my hunch is eastern red cedar.....at least that's the first tree to colonizemeadows around here.
 
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BEConklin said:
The OP never clarified which cedar but since the woodlot is on abandoned farm land my hunch is eastern red cedar.....at least that's the first tree to colonizemeadows around here.
Click to expand...

Actually I don't know which it is but you're probably right. Appears that pine was first ( there's a patch I stopped mowing that's appears to be covered with 7 ft skinny pines- maybe some cedar).

Anyway, I don't take down any substantial tree unless it's an obstruction. For any cedars I cut, I'll buck to length and rack off the ground. Don't need the shoulder wood.
 
I am just mad that my mental picture of a beautiful trout on a cedar plank just turned into a grey lump of inedible goo.:mad:
 
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