Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Who's ordering trees this fall?

I just placed an order for several hundred loblolly & white pine, red oak, white ash, red mulberry, and persimmon.

This summer roasted any plantings I did this spring. What a shame. I'll probably order bulk persimmon, pecan, pitlolly pine, and ponderosa pine for next spring. And buy some cheap conservation grade trees from lawyer nursery when the time comes.
And I'll probably transplant alot of sumac in my failed plantations. They can survive the drought without dying. Its hard to fail with sumac. I have just bought staghorn sumac this year. The only native species here is smooth sumac.

Until next time, me.

Who did you order yours thru? My problem is that I usually only want to plant a couple dozen instead of 100s. I have just got mine thru the NCRS in the past because of this.

I ordered White Oak (favorites of deer) + Dogwoods for an under story area that I thinned out this summer.

Gator

I ordered from the Missourri state nursery. Per tree their prices are about the same as the other state nurseries, but they sell in quantities of 25 trees. I can get a better variety of species in the same # of trees in an order. Most of the state nurseries seem to have minimum bundle sizes of 100 or 500. I'm planting by hand with an OST dibble bar, so on a good day I can't plant more than a few hundred.

Wow, that's quite a few that I can't get here in Iowa. Love to plant some persimmon and maybe paw paws. DNR has their only paw paw grove about a mile from me. Sposed to be evaluating which varieties do best here...probably be about 175 years before we have any data.

I planted five 3-4' paw paw trees last Winter and they all budded out and did well for several months. But then we had a Summer drought and all but one died. I'm going to try again this Spring planting them in partial shade and soil that is more moist. My neighbor across the road has lots of wild paw paw growing along his creek.

Eric, I would suggest planting them this winter when dormant so the roots can establish before spring budding.

For a little extra reference, we kick alot of the tree stuff around on the mail order tree thread .
I think it was h20fwlkillr that mentioned the MO. DOC nursery...? Anyway, I followed suit and ordered 50 White Pines and 50 Norway Spruce this past April '06. They arrived bare root, lookin' pretty good. We plugged 'em into a prepared nursery bed right in the back yard here at home a couple days later. The next day it poured and the wind whipped 50 mph gusts. They took a pretty severe exposed beating. As of today, I lost 2 of the Norways and nearly all the White Pine. The White Pines just never took. I have about 10 that are 3/4 brown and a couple of clumps of green needle hangin' on. The rest are DOA. The Norway Spruce, tho, look great. I already transplanted 4 of the Norways to the pond project as an experiment. The plan will be to transplant the rest of 'em this coming Spring.
I just got off the phone with my NRCS agent. We are going to meet this coming week to kick in the W.H.I.P. program for Spring '07.

Thanks for the tip on Missouri. I'll order some trees from them. I'm not ordering from ohio state nursery because pitlolly pine is sold out.

So I browsed the available trees and they have alot of different oaks. Sounds like a plan if they are available when/if I order.

I have ordered from Missouri state nursery, these trees for spring.
25 of each

Bald Cypress
Cherrybark Oak
Jack Pine
Loblolly Pine
Nuttall Oak
Pin Oak
River Birch
Shortleaf Pine
Swamp Chestnut Oak
Swamp White Oak
Willow Oak

Sounds good Lance, that's a nice selection you've got there. Are you planting with a dibble? I'm probably going to place a 2nd order later in winter after the 1st one is planted.

What has everyone else done for weed control? I'm reforesting several acres and planted at random with no weed control other than some manual removal. Some of the trees are getting choked out by grass/weeds/briars while others have already popped out above the weeds. I wanted things as natural as possible and the trees not planted in rows, but am wondering if I should have used some type of vegetation control. Thinking about planting this years trees in rows and bushhogging between them until they are 4-5' tall. My preference would be biodegradeable tree mats but they would cost a lot more than the seedlings themselves.

Eric

I've never seen Swamp White Oak seedlings commercially available before.

We've got a big Swamp White, between 3 1/2 and 4 ft dbh, that's one of my favorite trees on the farm. It was sold to the logging company that did our woods two years ago, but they left it and 2-3 other large trees because of the potential liability of accidentally dropping them on a house in the subdivision next door (those people build closer to my property line than I ever would by a factor of 10). I can't say I'm sorry it's still here, producing mast, especially considering I already got paid for it.

Eric:

I have two different plantings of trees; one I bushhog alongside every 2-3 weeks, the other I manually remove bushes/briars/poison ivy once a year with a brush axe (too small and rough an area to bushhog). Once a year seems to almost keep even with multiflora rose. The ivy's getting ahead of me and I really should brush axe that stand a second time annually.

There may be a difference in deer predation on the two stands due to the different amounts of weeds around the seedlings. The cut-once-a-year patch has noticeably less deer loss, but it is also right next to the subdivision. Since that may be a bigger deterrent to the deer, I'm not sure what to true cause is.

I dibble the trees into a nursery bed, where they can gain some size. I use a dibble out in the field, but I would rather dig a hole with a spade and plant bigger trees.

Using herbicide in an area around the tree is a common method, but I don't use herbicides. I try and pull the weeds around them, but don't do so well. I want to transplant sizes that voles and rabbits won't destroy, so my only concern will be deer.