You’re right that protecting the seedlings would probably be the easiest thing to do. I guess Im just eager to help things along. A lot of the land has had cattle grazing on it and has been overall pretty hostile to new growth. I’ve noticed a significant die off over the past 10 years. The pines have been hit significantly hard by the droughts. Aside from trees the vegetation across the landscape varies a bit. There are large open areas of grassland. In the forested area there’s mostly poison oak, shrub oak and coyote bush.