What Are You Planting This Spring?

I did 10 silky dogwood and 10 swamp white oak from MDC a couple weeks ago.

This weekend I did 25 ROD and 25 aroniaberry from Iowa DNR. I much prefer planting clusters of shrubs to individual trees. Having an enthusiastic assistant was a huge help.

5dcc763c0a2d16318d658e5c2a67b58c.jpg

f798079a52df7e37eee0e5b41271f6c9.jpg

5765383656f0897417ddecaa0813f979.jpg


I keep saying this, but next year I’m going to cut back. I think an order of wild plum will be the plan, the ones I’ve planted in the past have done REALLY well, there are some native ones around, and I’ve successfully grafted some over to known varieties. They are very showy and sucker to spread slowly. What’s not to love
58d86e4745a1b613e5338bb10a52cc65.jpg

1ab3f85ea6fa330e052cb7e39f4ded51.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Just did the following recently:
25 more red osier dogwoods - already rooted and planted them in cages or caged areas.
1 Ruby Rush Apple
1 Enterprise Apple
1 Galarina Apple
1 Sundance Apple
Have dug up and transplanted close to 50 miscellaneous shrubs into downed tree tops from storms. Tree tops provide browse protection.

Today - Topworked 4 Callery pears to good varieties

In a few more days - Sex change operation planned for several persimmon trees. Persimmons are still dormant here right now, so must wait for bark to slip.
 
Last edited:
10 2 gallon austrian pines
10 1 gallon meyer spruce
5 white cedar 1 gallon
25 black hills spruce bare root
25 white pine bare root
25 tamarack bare root
10 white cedar bare root


2 of my daughters skipped school on Friday and we ran up north and got this stuff all planted on Friday and Saturday. 40 cages, 80 bags mulch and about 85 weed mats. They tired when we came home on Sunday. Round 2 this coming weekend if it rains. We need water at my land. Its very very dry.


IMG_9700.JPEGIMG_9702.JPEG
 
I've got about 130 oaks started and will pick about 50-60 of the best to plant between my home property and hunting property, then give the rest away.
I know I have 1/2 dozen apples ordered, but can't remember which ones. I need to start planting more evergreens, but probably not this year.
These pots have:
White ( local awesome tree)
Swamp White ( down wind from above white)
Chestnut oak ( that I hope were crossed with white)
Pin ( hopefully crossed with Northern red)
Swamp Chestnut ( from a tree I planted 20+ years ago, surrounded by English)
Swamp white ( from a tree I planted 20+ years ago, surrounded by English)
English ( possible cross with White)
Bur x english
Concordia
I can remember what i ordered, now that I'm getting "shipped" notices!
Add to the list of oaks:
10 shagbark Hickory
20 persimmon (various varieties)
2 liberty apples
2 enterprise apples
2 hunter deer pear
2 kieffer pear
2 rifle deer pear
I thought I bought another Chestnut crab, but I guess I didn't.
 
16 apple trees from Whitetail crabs - weed mat, mulch, cage
50 white oak + tubes
50 swamp white oak + tubes
50 ROD
25 lilacs
75 white spruce
25 white pine
25 balsam fir
25 American plum
50 American hazelnut

The conifers and oaks are going into an area that was just timber harvested and most will be utilizing tree tops for caging. Still have about 200 shrubs/conifers to plant. My body is tired.20240420_121407.jpg20240420_131138.jpg20240414_182751.jpg
 
Hard to tell from pic but hope your timber harvest was fairly aggressive where you planted the oaks. I found after planting a bunch of crabapples and a few oaks in "openings" after a harvest that the remaining trees could generate canopy faster than new trees could grow tall. Within 5-7 yrs it was hard to find a planted tree that made it. A few but they were close to a bigger opening (log landing) to start with. Maybe being an oak will help. Obviously crabapples are a shorter tree even when mature so will need any tall trees to be spaced away even more.

But guess you can do more tree release down the road if needed.

What worked best were small 1/4 - 1/2 acres spots that were clear cut to ensure better sun to the ground. The oaks in those did fine
 
Last edited:
Hard to tell from pic but hope your timber harvest was fairly aggressive where you planted the oaks. I found after planting a bunch of crabapples and a few oaks in "openings" after a harvest that the remaining trees could generate canopy faster than new trees could grow tall. Within 5-7 yrs it was hard to find a planted tree that made it. A few but they were close to a bigger opening (log landing) to start with. Maybe being an oak will help. Obviously crabapples are a shorter tree even when mature so will need any tall trees to be spaced away even more.

But guess you can do more tree release down the road if needed.

What worked best were small 1/4 - 1/2 acres spots that were clear cut to ensure better sun to the ground. The oaks in those did fine
In this area it was pretty aggressive and it is a south facing slope so it will see a bunch of sun. Also, adjacent to this harvest is a bunch of 8-12" ash trees which will be dead in a few years from the Emerald ash borer so that will help with canopy reduction as well.
 
Yep sunlight is key for oak and crabapple survival. For maples and hemlocks, not so much
 
Picked up last Friday at the Nicollet county SWCD sale:

14 white cedar 2 gallon pots
10 ROD
10 red splendor crabs
10 SWO
10 Flame willow

Also had a delivery from Chief River:

12 Canadian hemlock
7 concolor fir

My wife and 8 year old daughter made 200 mile drive with me Friday afternoon and we got 18 trees planted before dark on Friday. We planted the rest on Saturday. Weed mats for all of them. Cages or tubes for all of them. Still need an additional 30 bags of mulch. We had an audience following us around the woods most of the day on Saturday. We kept running into the same 5-6 deer all day long. Best I have ever seen them look coming out of a winter by us. I was very pleased with the quality of the white cedar pots again. They were very nice for $17.

IMG_9763.JPEGIMG_9769.JPEGIMG_9790.JPEG
 
25 - Norway spruce
10 - White oaks
10 - Chestnut oaks
10 - balsam fir
6 each - black cherry, gray dogwood, quaking aspen, arrowwood viburnum, choke cherry.
3 - hybrid chestnut trees
3 - potted ROD, to add to previous ones planted a couple years ago. Nice and bushy.

All but a few spruce were caged.
 
Top