What Are You Planting This Spring?

The last couple weeks I've had a mess of free trees dropped in my lap and some others show up so I've been working harder than an ugly stripper:
Apple root stocks
Persimmon
Shag Bark Hickory
Hazel Nut
White Oak
Pin Oak
Paw Paw
Black Walnut
Chickasaw Plum
Chinese Chestnut
Elderberry
Black Cheery
Mexican Plum
Wild cherry

I have a pile more to pick up today and see what they consist of.

ETA: Today I did more
Shag Bark Hickory
Hazel Nut
Black Walnut
Paw Paw
Chinese Chestnut
White Oak

4wanderingeyes said:

Where do you get them for so cheap?

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The County.

This year is just a 2 acre deer plot, a 2 acre dove plot, and maintaining a 1/2 acre Aeschynomene/Alyce clover plot.

I will collect several 5 gallon buckets of acorns off the place this fall and direct seed them next January in an area I plan to convert back to post oak / burr oak savannah. I would direct seed them as they fall, but I plan on burning the area next February to get rid of all the cedar skeletons we have cut down this past year. I don’t want the seedlings to have broken ground already and get burned.


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Last Wed, I decided to run up north and bust ass for the day. Left at 4am, made the 200 mile drive and immediately went and collected a bunch of trees from the road ditch to plant on my land and a few on some other property (125 trees total). My last batch of 50 balsam firs shown here was planted right along my road for eventual screening (they do best under the heavy canopy and deer dont browse them, but like to rub the piss out of them).


Was able to plant those 50 trees in 58 mins being so close to the truck. Then I made half a truckload of spruce firewood for the campfire at home, then I sprayed about 1acre of old plot with my hand sprayer where I am trying to establish switchgrass. Then I made brush piles for a couple hours, and then finsihed it off with a couple hours putting weed mats under my new cedar and white pine trees. At 815 PM I turned the truck back south and got home shortly before midnight. Then the next four days I spent about 16 hours per day planting my crops down south and got all that done Sunday night.



We could use some rain Mr. Beauchamp.......



These trees DO NOT get the full treatment. I just rip them out, plant them, and walk away. I am not gentle with them.

Lots of work for sure but worth it all day long. I hope i have another 20 years of being able to appreciate and be in nature. Being outdoors in nature is the best feeling in the world. Words don't do it justice---makes me sad that my kids didn't get into the outdoors at all. I had hopes of the family being outdoors doing stuff together but no one ever wants to go outside anymore.

jsasker007 said:

Lots of work for sure but worth it all day long. I hope i have another 20 years of being able to appreciate and be in nature. Being outdoors in nature is the best feeling in the world. Words don't do it justice---makes me sad that my kids didn't get into the outdoors at all. I had hopes of the family being outdoors doing stuff together but no one ever wants to go outside anymore.

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Take away the things that keep them inside. Unplug the internet modem at home. Show them how to do cool things outside ... shoot, blow shit up, etc. You should be in control of their time, not them

I agree and tried everything i could think of and still letting them have some say in what we did. They eventually got to the point where video games is taking up the majority of their time time when ever they have time they spend it gaming. Mine are now ages 25, 22, and 16 years old. I volunteered for about 15 years coaching elementary basketball on saturdays and it was great! Now there is nothing. Anyway, get your kids outdoors and make some memories. Best thing you can do with your time. imho. My plan was to hunt with my kids until i just couldn't because of old age---now i've got some hunting land and can't share it with my kids. HURTS

So far this spring i planted 100 evergreens and hope to do some more.

Maybe someday one of your adult children will change tunes. It happens.

jsasker007 said:

I agree and tried everything i could think of and still letting them have some say in what we did. They eventually got to the point where video games is taking up the majority of their time time when ever they have time they spend it gaming. Mine are now ages 25, 22, and 16 years old. I volunteered for about 15 years coaching elementary basketball on saturdays and it was great! Now there is nothing. Anyway, get your kids outdoors and make some memories. Best thing you can do with your time. imho. My plan was to hunt with my kids until i just couldn't because of old age---now i've got some hunting land and can't share it with my kids. HURTS

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You still have a chance with grandkids some day!

I am moving to my hunting land in a few weeks. My 2 kids use to love going there, but now that they are older, my son who is 23 really has no interest after getting a new woman in his life, is now expecting twins. My daughter which is 27, has 2 kids, 7 and 3, the 7 yo would live with me if I let him, he always wants to shoot, hunt anything, ride atv, and play outside. The 3yo also loves playing outside, in the sandbox, dirt, etc. So I have hope that if my kids dont come back around to nature, the grandkids will.

Nothing has hurt my feelings as much as when my kids would rather play video games than spend time with me. They are young and have forever and i'm wondering how much longer i have and want to make the most of it. IRONIC. Of course after a guy is married with children the friends you had become a faint memory---then you sit and think how it all got to this point. Kinda like going through life with the blinders on.

As parents, I don’t think kids realize what we all give up for them.

Finished up a combo of Spruce, Cedar, Swamp Bur Oak, Red Oak, Pin Oak, a few mixed shrubs and 2 apple trees. Took my time this year. Cage/tube adds hours, all done! Thank goodness

Max of 30 trees next year, no more!!

4wanderingeyes said:

As parents, I don’t think kids realize what we all give up for them.

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Exactly.....

Mats,cages,screens,stakes,water,fertilizer......

a simple ,occasional thank you from my baby trees would be nice

bill

Pretty sure for about the last 5 years i keep saying this is my last year but keep ordering trees and then when they show up half the time i forgot i ordered any.

No tree expert here but added 4 Elderberry shrubs, going to add a 5th shrub to the left of the group, probably a ninebark. Something that will tolerate medium to dry soil better up the hill.

Foreground will be converted to NWSG strip next winter.

Wild common apple planted one month ago. Full sun. From U of Idaho. 20 cubic inch plug




2 gallon black hills spruce planted about a month ago. Weed mat and fully mulched. All of my 2 gallon BHS look GREAT and will likely be the only spruce I buy to plant ever again. I have watered twice and will water all summer long if needed to keep them humming along. Im not satisfied with them just surviving. I can drive my truck right up to them so its easy to water.

2 gallon meyer spruce full weed mat and mulch. Watered 2 times from a nearby wet hole. Exploded with new growth. Gonna try it without the cage. Think I got some beneficial pond muck to eventually help fertilize these trees.






2 gallon white cedar planted this spring. I put some up ontop of the crest of hills in bedding areas that I am trying to create. They will be in a horseshoe shaped to black nasty winds and expose the wildlfie to the sunlight on really crappy days. I also have them along travel corridors. They look amazing, but dont show any signs of growth, and I dont expect them to. Good sunlight for most of the day, watered twice, weed mats and cages on them. I have high hopes for these things and investing plenty into them.

1 gallon white pine. Full mulch and cage. planted last month. Putting out good growth already....




This white pine was planted in 25 months ago, in the spring of 2019. It was an ABP plug from Itasca greenhouse. A bunch of them look like they will grow to the top or over a 4 foot cage by the end of this summer. I LOVE white pine in cages with a weed mat. 2 feet a year on these things looks highly attainable in my woods. I expect big things by season 3 out of these.

bwoods11 said:

Finished up a combo of Spruce, Cedar, Swamp Bur Oak, Red Oak, Pin Oak, a few mixed shrubs and 2 apple trees. Took my time this year. Cage/tube adds hours, all done! Thank goodness

Max of 30 trees next year, no more!!View attachment 34752View attachment 34753

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If its yours to use, I'd be making cages out of the fence wire on the old fence in the first photo.