SD51555
5 year old buck +
I farted around with this 4 years ago, and it was a huge success. I put 20 ROD plugs in one hole and threw a cage over it, mulched and matted, and walked away. 4 years later, they are full bushes, producing, and look great.
I wanna go even bigger. What's held me back is there appears to be no ROD plugs anywhere in the market place. So, it hit me in the head like a wayward snowball, why not use bare roots?
Mind you, I've always hated planting bare roots because of root shock, the roots getting bent backwards or stuffed together. Then I though, "why don't I just dig a big hole and instead of trying to backfill with chunks of sod and clay dough, just buy a couple bags of topsoil to backfill?" So that's what I'm gonna do.
I scratched out a blue print of what it'll look like. Outside cage would be 7' x 5'. I'll need maybe 6 - 6' T-posts to hold up a 5' tall mesh fence. Inside, with a 2' setback on all sides, I'll plunk 100 bare roots into 4 rows in a 1' x 3' trench, and as far apart as they need to be. I'll lay the twigs in and fill the hole row by row. I'll put weed mat and wood chips down around the setback and then about an inch of composted and fresh sawdust to keep the sun off the soil. I've got quite the mountain of saw mill saw dust stored up at camp.
I've already got the cage, need about $30 in posts, $140 in seedlings, and $8 in topsoil/potting soil. If I wasn't obsessed with crazy, I'd probably knock this down to 4 - 25 stem cages. But i really want to see what this does. This will get planted out in my sanctuary where I've got lots of open space and brush piles waiting for the birds to start banking the new wealth. Within 10 years, I wanna see dogwood blow up bigly across my cut areas.
If this works, I may have to go even bigger in 2025. Maybe not an even bigger cage, but do 2-3 of these so the pioneer bushes are in place all over the property. It's coming along already, I just want it to come as fast as possible.
I wanna go even bigger. What's held me back is there appears to be no ROD plugs anywhere in the market place. So, it hit me in the head like a wayward snowball, why not use bare roots?
Mind you, I've always hated planting bare roots because of root shock, the roots getting bent backwards or stuffed together. Then I though, "why don't I just dig a big hole and instead of trying to backfill with chunks of sod and clay dough, just buy a couple bags of topsoil to backfill?" So that's what I'm gonna do.
I scratched out a blue print of what it'll look like. Outside cage would be 7' x 5'. I'll need maybe 6 - 6' T-posts to hold up a 5' tall mesh fence. Inside, with a 2' setback on all sides, I'll plunk 100 bare roots into 4 rows in a 1' x 3' trench, and as far apart as they need to be. I'll lay the twigs in and fill the hole row by row. I'll put weed mat and wood chips down around the setback and then about an inch of composted and fresh sawdust to keep the sun off the soil. I've got quite the mountain of saw mill saw dust stored up at camp.
I've already got the cage, need about $30 in posts, $140 in seedlings, and $8 in topsoil/potting soil. If I wasn't obsessed with crazy, I'd probably knock this down to 4 - 25 stem cages. But i really want to see what this does. This will get planted out in my sanctuary where I've got lots of open space and brush piles waiting for the birds to start banking the new wealth. Within 10 years, I wanna see dogwood blow up bigly across my cut areas.
If this works, I may have to go even bigger in 2025. Maybe not an even bigger cage, but do 2-3 of these so the pioneer bushes are in place all over the property. It's coming along already, I just want it to come as fast as possible.
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