Everyone cuts wood, but does anyone have source for saplings

[TomB]

I live in northern Illinios, are there any suppliers that will sell saplings (baby trees, twigs...)? I was just curious. We all cut wood, but how many people are replanting Oak, Hickory, Maples?

 

[ansehnlich1]

There are many suppliers in the U.S.

My favorite is www.musserforests.com

It's just one of many though. If you check their website you'll see they ship in several different sizes/quantites.

I plant about 20 trees a year, normally 4 yr. transplants. I can manage to water about 20, if ya plant a bunch of seedlings and have a dry summer you lose a bunch of 'em.

Latley I've been buying from my local county agricultural district, they sell native species to this area.

 

[LLigetfa]

Trees have been replanting themselves since the beginning of time. If you plant from nursery stock, you may promote monocultures that can be devastated by disease they all share a misfortune of not being resistant to.

 

[jdemaris]

I live in northern Illinios, are there any suppliers that will sell saplings (baby trees, twigs...)? I was just curious. We all cut wood, but how many people are replanting Oak, Hickory, Maples?

If you can buy from your own county ag/forestry department, it's probably the best deal.

I've got no shortage of saplings on any of my properties - but . . . Most areas have county ag. and forestry departments of some sort and have annual spring sapling sales. They usually promote native species that do the best in your area, and are often dirt-cheap. I get catalogs every year from every county I own land in. They offer seedlings and also larger transplants along with wildflower seed mixes. Prices this year here in central New York:

Coniferous seedlings - $20 for bundles of 25 trees - Canadian Hemlock, Balsam Fir, Blue Spruce, Douglas Fir, Fraser Fir, Tamarack, Norway Spruce, White Cedar, White Pine, White Spruce.

Deciduous seedlings - $20 for bundles of 25 trees - Black Cherry, Lilac, Red Oak, Sugar Maple, White Paper Birch, Willow, Black Walnut.

Larger transplants - $20 for bundles of 10 trees

 

[Chief Ryan]

Trees have been replanting themselves since the beginning of time. If you plant from nursery stock, you may promote monocultures that can be devastated by disease they all share a misfortune of not being resistant to.

What i've been doing is finding small saplings, dig em up, stick em in a flower pot, bring em in the house over the winter and let em grow. I would think this would help against monocultures.

I've thinking of doing the same with planting trees from a nursery but i found that digging them up is a lot cheaper That's a good point with the disease resistance.

 

[stee6043]

A source I've used with success for the last few Springs....


www.arborday.org


They have quite a selection...and they ship.

 

[LLigetfa]

What i've been doing is finding small saplings, dig em up...

I don't bother to pot them but I do relocate desireable saplings out of harm's way. I will harvest some seeds and cast them. I also remove some undesirable competition.

 

[bsruther]

I also find saplings and dig them up. they're all over in the woods, behind the house. We planted a lot of trees in the yard last fall. In the two years that we've lived here, we've planted at least 40 trees. In the woods, the small trees have to struggle to compete with the invasive underbrush. When I plant them out in the open, they really thrive.
We've found that late fall is a good time to go to Lowes, Home Depot and local nursuries to find good deals when they are trying to dump their tree inventory.
Ky dept of forestry has a seedling program and you can buy them in bundles for cheap. I need to order some soon, because they only sell them in winter months.

 

[Duetech]

I have sugar and silver maples that drop seeds by the thousands in my yard and several black walnuts too. When I rototiller my garden maples are the invasive species until the weeds take over. If you're in the neighborhood drop by and I'll give you a few.

 

[TomB]

Thanks for all the replies. I appreciate your help. I am planning on planting in the spring.
Thanks again everyone.

TomB

 

[bsruther]

You can plant trees anytime and be successful, but it's best to plant while the trees are still dormant.

 

[jdemaris]

You can plant trees anytime and be successful, but it's best to plant while the trees are still dormant.

Not where I live, and I'm not in a very hot area. If you plant in the summer, and can't be around to water, they'll usually wither and die. That because they can't survive dry weather until they grow a root system. Plant in the spring or fall when there's more rain and they have time to develop those roots by the time summer comes along.

 

[bsruther]

You can plant trees anytime and be successful, but it's best to plant while the trees are still dormant.

Not where I live, and I'm not in a very hot area. If you plant in the summer, and can't be around to water, they'll usually wither and die. That because they can't survive dry weather until they grow a root system. Plant in the spring or fall when there's more rain and they have time to develop those roots by the time summer comes along.

That's why I said that it's best to plant trees while they're dormant. They are dormant from fall until early spring.

 

[NoPaint]

I think this is a good idea. I would rather people get out and plant than try and plan planting and never do it. Realistically just go out and plant one or two and they should be fine if the ground is digable.


We should try planting mulberry trees. Since most people on here are outdoorsy they might enjoy harvesting the berries for years and they are very fast growing trees to boot so they get to cutting height quicker.

Mulberries root easily. If you take a cutting from a tree you already have and soak them in water for a couple minutes and then put in soil they usually root. Then just let that baby go. If you are trying to root cuttings keep them in until the spring.

 

[firefighterjake]

I do selective cutting . . . leaving the larger, healthy and mature trees unmolested in the hopes that they will continue to drop seeds and repopulate the area. So far my family has been doing this for years and it has worked out well. Heck, my father cut 30-feet or so on the edge of the "Big Field" 15 or 20 years ago . . . and that's where I'm cutting now . . . plenty of trees. I will not go out of my way to plant saplings, but I will leave some mature trees to reseed an area and leave some saplings and smaller trees to continue to grow.