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Planting your trees

hickslawns

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We purchased 560 trees from the local Soil and Water Conservation office annual tree sale this year. These are not what you may think of when you see trees at the nursery. These are not ball and burlapped. They are not even in a 5/10/20 gallon bucket. They are so small, most people would probably not pick them up if mowing their lawns and these were sticks on the ground. Don't get me wrong, some of them might be the size of your pinky finger, but many are about the size of a sucker stick.

Here is what we are doing to ensure maximum success. This IS going to be more work. I also feel the additional work will be well worth the effort if it means a greatly increased survival rate. Here is the plan.

Gather up as many 1 gallon buckets from the local nurseries as you need. If you can't get any, then they can be purchased reasonably at places online. We have purchased items such as this from AM Leonard in the past and they are right here in Ohio. We filled approximately 1/3-1/2 the pot with top soil, a handful of sphagnum peat moss, then topped it off with some more top soil. Water them in, sprinkle some 6-24-24 fertilizer on the top of the pots, and put them in the ground pot and all. I am going to dig several rows and heel them in right by my garden. I might even cover them with some mulch to help retain more moisture. When I water the garden, the trees will be watered as well. Come fall I will pull them out of the ground and place them where they will continue to grow. The tap root with a handful of shoots should completely fill out the 1gal pot by fall. At this point the trees will stand a much higher success rate.

I will continue updating as the progress continues. Hopefully we finish potting tomorrow. I doubt it, but hopefully not too far away from being done. Depends on how much help I get.
 

hickslawns

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OMG that sounds like a lot of work! Good luck!

The kids and I worked on them yesterday. Spent 1 hr out there with three kids (7,10,11) and we potted up 60-75 trees. Can't remember which packets of trees contained 20 trees and which ones had 25, thus the 60-75. I wasn't counting. haha

I just hope we have enough 1 gallon pots to get them all planted.
 

hickslawns

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White oak, sugar maple, eastern white pine, Colorado blue spruce, Norway spruce. Might be one or two others. Can't remember.

Where? I don't know yet. I'll figure it out. ahahahhaah Honestly, the majority are going to my buddy. I bought them and he is "supposed" to be helping me pot them up. Need to get him an invoice for the trees. Might wait to see if he helps me to pot them up or not. lmao The rest are going to our new property we closed on a few months ago. White pine along the road for some privacy. Rows of oak and sugar maple. Rows of white pine with some clusters along the woods as well to provide some future bedding areas. Eventually I will have the deer eating food plots there and bedding close to the building so I can shoot them from the roof. lmao

Think I have enough pots?
 

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jagermeister

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Damn, Phil... That's a buttload of effort to be putting into seedlings. I really hope it pays off for you. Keep us posted!
 

Darron

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Dayton, Ohio
good luck with your plantings. I tried planting a line of hyrbrid willows (cuttings) as a road screen and I got 0 growth. I used a 4' wide roll of black plastic as my weed mat and stuck the cuttings in the ground every 8-10'. Hybrid willows are suppose to grow 4-6' per year. I don't know what happened. I worked my behind off on that project, spent about $150 on the cuttings and materials and nothing grew LOL.

Hopefully you have better luck than me.
 

hickslawns

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Thanks Darron. These trees are funny. One person might see 90% success. Next person might see 10%. Those I have spoken with which had the best success planted them in pots like I am doing. Then they dropped them in the ground that fall. I expect some failures. It is reality. Time will tell. I will keep you all posted.

I should add, the people putting the cuttings straight into the ground had results anywhere from 0-90% success. Put them in pots first and success might be 40% on up. They just aren't all going to make it. By just dropping them in the ground though is a crap shoot.
 

Gern186

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NW Ohio Tundra
Mulch them and pray for rain the first couple years til the roots get established.


Also, I still have a bunch of those tree protector sleeves in the barn if you want them.....you can cut them to the lengths you need for the saplings.
 

CJD3

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NE Ohio
One year my father-in-law planted 4 apple trees on his country 5 acre lot adjacent to mine.
By the 3ed year, the local buck had rubbed 3/4 to death... I tried to get him to apply for deer/crop damage pointing out he had a 75% loss...Dide'nt work. :smiley_crocodile:
 

hickslawns

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Good point Chad. Might take you up on that. We got a bunch the first time, but we didn't have 560 trees to plant then. haha

CJD- fortunately, no fruit trees in the bunch to worry about. Where most of these are going, I don't think we will have any huge issues with the deer on them right ow. Maybe down the road though.
 

hickslawns

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Ohio
My hunting buddy came over tonight. We potted up another 80-100 trees. Going to keep them watered and drop them in the ground "permanently" on my property in the fall. Once they are 2-3 years old and we feel they will survive a transplant, we will move his share to his farm. This is our main deer hunting property. We hate to go in and water, weed, prune, and mess with them on the hunting property. While my property has some woods, my nursery area is closer to the road and it will not effect the deer patterns in my woods. Feeling pretty good about things right now! Can't wait to be done with this project. Got a bunch done in a couple hours!
 

Huckleberry Finn

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good luck with your plantings. I tried planting a line of hyrbrid willows (cuttings) as a road screen and I got 0 growth. I used a 4' wide roll of black plastic as my weed mat and stuck the cuttings in the ground every 8-10'. Hybrid willows are suppose to grow 4-6' per year. I don't know what happened. I worked my behind off on that project, spent about $150 on the cuttings and materials and nothing grew LOL.

Hopefully you have better luck than me.

I've planted a ton of stuff on plastic...it sucks. If I was planting trees the size Phil is talking about, I'd do them a lot closer than that.
 

Buckmaster

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Portage
My trees come in tomorrow. I already have some bagged manure and topsoil I picked up a Lowes.

My project is simple: 10 Paw Paw and 15 Persimmon
 

hickslawns

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Your project sounds much simpler than mine Ben. Then again, you had a jump start on your property.