h20fwlkllr I got my trees from the MO. Department of Conservation this year for the first time, and am pleased with them. Their prices are slightly better than other state nurseries around Tennessee, but if you compare prices on same quantities they are about the same. But the biggest reason I ordered from them is they are willing to sell in smaller lots of trees, and I wanted to order many different species this year. Also they were still in stock on most everything in December, and other states were already sold out of alot of species. I have another small order in with them that should be here any day now. Northern Red Oak must be really popular these days, by December *all* the state nurseries surrounding Tennessee were sold out on them. (And I wanted some) I ordered Shumard Oak which is a good substitute.
Brettski, from the pics of your farm I would agree that your forest is probably ~35 y/o. If the site for the conifers is going to get much shade you'll have to select carefully ... lots of conifers need full sun.
Agreed with everything Lance said about the Royal Empress/Royal Paulownia trees. They're a non-native from Asia that is turning into an invasive. A couple years ago my neighbor planted a couple in his back yard and was talking about how they would grow 20' a year. Despite him watering and babying them and doing everything right to help them out, they were dead in a month
I've heard from some other people that they will grow very fast. Their wood is in high demand in some Asian countries for making trinkets and woodcrafts.
Most of these fast growing trees have brittle wood, are short lived, and heavily susceptible to wind and storm damage. In the Spring it seems like in every other yard a long row of Bradford Pears is blooming. After a few years though more and more of them look like someone chucked a grenade into them. They're really bad about being damaged by wind and storms. Another bad thing about the fast growing deciduous trees is that they lose their leaves in the winter, which somewhat nullifies their windbreak and privacy screen benefits. One of the more "solid" fast growing trees you can plant is tulip poplar/yellow poplar. After the roots are established they can grow over 3' a year and they will live a pretty long time. They get huge too, but their natural range doesn't extend into Texas or into any part of Illinois but the very southern tip.
