When the owner of a 120-acre property in southern Osceola County contacted us, he had owned the land for nearly a decade but was frustrated with the hunting. Deer sightings were infrequent, mostly limited to dawn and dusk at the edges of his food plots. Trail cameras showed low activity. The turkeys he used to hear gobbling in spring had gone quiet. Something had changed, and he knew it was not the deer — it was the land.
This case study walks through the assessment, the plan, the execution, and the results of a multi-phase habitat restoration project that turned a declining hunting property into one of the most productive parcels in the area.
Property Assessment
We walked the property over two days in early summer, covering every major habitat type and documenting what we found.
Pine Flatwoods (65 acres)
The majority of the property was planted slash pine, roughly 25 years old, that had never been thinned. Stem density was approximately 350 to 400 stems per acre, and the canopy was completely closed. Beneath the pines, a dense midstory of laurel oak, wax myrtle, and gallberry had grown to 12 to 15 feet, blocking virtually all light from reaching the forest floor.
The ground layer was bare — nothing but pine straw, leaf litter, and scattered shade-tolerant seedlings. There was essentially zero browse available for deer. No native grasses. No forbs. No mast-producing shrubs. These 65 acres were biological desert from a wildlife perspective.
Hardwood Hammocks and Creek Drainage (30 acres)
A seasonal creek ran through the eastern portion of the property, bordered by hardwood hammocks dominated by live oak, water oak, laurel oak, and cabbage palm. These areas had good structure for bedding cover and some mast production, but they were being encroached by invasive Chinese tallow and Brazilian pepper.
Open Areas and Food Plots (15 acres)
The owner had established several food plots totaling about four acres, plus some open areas where a previous homesite and pasture had existed. These open areas were the only places on the property generating any wildlife use, which explained why all the trail camera activity was concentrated there.
Existing Roads and Access (10 acres)
A network of sandy roads provided basic access, but many had become overgrown and difficult to navigate.
The Problems
The assessment made the situation clear. The property’s problems were interconnected:
- No understory in the pine flatwoods. Without sunlight reaching the ground, there was no native browse, no cover diversity, and no food production in the largest habitat type on the property.
- Overstocked timber. The pines were growing poorly due to competition, producing no timber value and providing minimal wildlife benefit.
- Invasive species in the hammocks. Chinese tallow and Brazilian pepper were displacing native mast producers and degrading the few areas that still had habitat value.
- All wildlife concentrated on 15 acres. The food plots and open areas were doing all the heavy lifting. The remaining 105 acres were contributing almost nothing to the property’s carrying capacity.
The owner had been trying to solve the problem with more food plots, better seed blends, and supplemental feeders. But the issue was not the food plots — it was that 85 percent of the property was not functioning as wildlife habitat.
The Plan
We developed a three-phase plan designed to transform the pine flatwoods into productive wildlife habitat while improving the hardwood hammocks and maintaining the existing open areas.
Phase 1: Pine Flatwoods Restoration (Year 1, Winter)
Objective: Open the canopy, remove midstory competition, and allow sunlight to reach the forest floor.
- Coordinate a commercial thinning of the slash pines to reduce basal area from approximately 150 square feet per acre to 60 to 70 square feet per acre. A logging crew would handle the harvest, generating revenue from pulpwood and small sawtimber.
- After the logging crew finished, bring in forestry mulching equipment to remove the remaining midstory hardwoods and brush. This would process all the stems too small or undesirable for the loggers — the laurel oaks, wax myrtle, and gallberry that were shading out the understory.
- Mulch firebreaks along all property boundaries and internal roads to prepare for future prescribed burning.
- Total area treated: approximately 55 of the 65 flatwoods acres (leaving 10 acres of dense cover untreated as bedding sanctuary).
Phase 2: Hammock Restoration and Invasive Treatment (Year 1, Late Winter)
Objective: Remove invasive species from the hardwood hammocks and improve mast production.
- Selectively mulch Chinese tallow and Brazilian pepper from the creek drainage and hammock edges.
- Treat cut stumps with herbicide to prevent regrowth.
- Release desirable mast-producing oaks and native trees from competition.
- Estimated area: 15 to 20 acres of selective work within the 30-acre hammock system.
Phase 3: Prescribed Fire Preparation and Burn (Year 2, Spring)
Objective: Introduce growing season prescribed fire to the treated flatwoods to stimulate native groundcover and further suppress hardwood regrowth.
- Use the mulched firebreaks from Phase 1 as control lines.
- Conduct a growing season burn across the treated flatwoods areas.
- Evaluate results and plan ongoing burn rotation for subsequent years.
Execution
The Timber Harvest
A commercial logging crew thinned the pine flatwoods during late fall, removing approximately 60 percent of the stems. The focus was on removing the smallest, most suppressed, and poorest-formed trees while retaining the healthiest dominants. The harvest generated enough revenue to offset a meaningful portion of the subsequent mulching costs.
Forestry Mulching
We brought equipment onto the property in January, starting work about three weeks after the loggers pulled out. The mulching operation focused on three tasks:
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Midstory removal in the thinned flatwoods. The operator worked systematically through the 55-acre treatment area, grinding all midstory hardwoods and brush to ground level while carefully navigating around the residual pines. This work took approximately eight working days.
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Firebreak installation. We mulched 20-foot-wide breaks along all property boundaries and along the main internal road network, creating clean containment lines for future prescribed burns. This added two days of machine time.
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Invasive species removal in the hammocks. The operator selectively mulched Chinese tallow and Brazilian pepper within the hardwood areas, working carefully around desirable native trees. A licensed herbicide applicator followed behind, treating fresh cut surfaces. This selective work took three days.
Total machine time on the project was approximately 13 working days spread over three weeks.
Prescribed Fire
The following spring, the owner worked with a certified burn manager to conduct the first prescribed burn across approximately 40 acres of the treated flatwoods. The mulched firebreaks provided clean containment lines, and the reduced fuel loads from the thinning and mulching allowed the fire to burn at a manageable intensity.
The burn was conducted in late April — a growing season fire timed to maximize hardwood suppression and stimulate native groundcover response.
Results
After One Growing Season (Summer, Year 1)
The response was visible within months of the mulching work. Where bare ground and pine straw had been the only ground cover for years, native grasses and forbs began to emerge. The sunlight pouring through the opened canopy activated a seed bank that had been dormant for decades.
Beautyberry, which is a premier deer browse species, appeared across the treated areas. Native bluestem and wiregrass began to fill in. Partridge pea, beggar’s lice, and other seed-producing forbs established themselves in the mulched areas.
After the First Burn (Late Year 2)
The prescribed fire amplified everything. The burn removed the mulch layer and leaf litter, exposing bare mineral soil and triggering an even more aggressive herbaceous response. By midsummer, the treated flatwoods had transformed from bare ground to a diverse, knee-high layer of native grasses and forbs.
Trail camera data told the story in numbers. Camera activity on the treated flatwoods increased by over 300 percent compared to the pre-treatment baseline. Deer were photographed feeding in the flatwoods throughout the day — not just at dawn and dusk, and not just at food plots.
Hunting Season Results (Year 2)
The owner reported his best hunting season in the decade he had owned the property. Key observations included:
- Significantly more daylight deer sightings during hunting season
- Better body condition on harvested deer, with higher dressed weights than previous years
- Turkey gobbling activity returned to the flatwoods in spring — birds that had not been heard on the property in years
- Stand placement flexibility — instead of being limited to food plot edges, the owner could hunt productive stands throughout the 55 acres of treated flatwoods
- Trail camera diversity — multiple mature bucks that had never been photographed on the property appeared on cameras within the first year
Long-Term Trajectory
We scheduled a maintenance visit in Year 3 to spot-treat invasive species resprouts and evaluate the need for additional mulching. The owner committed to a prescribed fire rotation of every 2 to 3 years to maintain the open conditions and continue building native groundcover diversity.
The timber stand, now growing at an accelerated rate with proper spacing, will reach sawtimber size years earlier than it would have unthinned. The owner is building timber value while simultaneously building habitat value — a rare win-win.
Project Cost Summary
The total investment for this 120-acre project, including commercial thinning, forestry mulching, invasive treatment, and prescribed fire, was in the range you would expect for a project of this scope. The commercial thin revenue offset a significant portion of the cost, and the owner applied for EQIP cost-share funding that, once approved, reimbursed a substantial percentage of the remaining eligible practices.
The net out-of-pocket cost, after timber revenue and cost-share, was a fraction of the gross investment — and the returns in habitat quality, hunting experience, and long-term property value made the decision straightforward.
The Takeaway
This project illustrates a principle that experienced land managers know well: the limiting factor on most hunting properties is not what you add to the land — it is what the land is not producing on its own. Food plots and feeders are supplements. The foundation is native habitat, and on most Central Florida properties, the only way to restore that habitat is to physically open the canopy and reintroduce fire.
TreeShop handled the forestry mulching component of this project, and we continue to provide maintenance mulching as part of the long-term management plan. If your hunting property is underperforming, the answer is almost certainly in the habitat, not the hardware.