Crafting with Buckthorn

Removing invasive buckthorn creates a messy problem. How do you get rid of it when you’re getting rid of it? At Great River Greening, we use a few common methods. Todd Rexine, our Director of Operations, came up with a new solution of his own recently:

I have wondered about other uses for buckthorn this past spring, knowing that the wood is an orange color with some interesting darker colorations. I got an idea from guiding my son as he carved a wooden spoon from kiln dried hard maple with a Dremel, saws and gouges.

I read up on traditional carving techniques for spoons and found out there is a way to carve items out of green wood (still wet). I bought myself a set of knives and cut some slabs of buckthorn from a tree while visiting my in-laws earlier this month.

The attached picture has the two spoons I carved on our last two family camping trips while sitting around the fire. The wood is not the easiest to work with as it is extremely hard, even when wet, and the grain doesn’t run as straight as some typical woods that people carve with. The end product is worth it with the variation in the grain patterns. I have plenty more slabs and other ideas to work on over the rest of the summer.