Best year ever for plugs?

SD51555

5 year old buck +
In trying to find a silver lining to all the rain many of us were grateful for early on, I got to thinking; this must be the best year to have switched to plugs. I haven't been back to look at the 600 i planted yet, but I have to imagine if they can't make it this year, they never will on my property.
 
Of course this is the year I didn't plant any trees or shrubs.
 
Good year for me to get in the game with 700 trees and 200 plugs. 99 percent of my norway spruce look like this 3 weeks
Ago. Ninebark, silky dogwood, buttonbush and wild plum are booming as well. Apples and crabs are not suffering either. Jackpot year one on major plantings. Makes me feel better about the 5 dead pears I have from 2012/13

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Oh that just makes me want to get up there all the more! I hope I can convince my brother to take some pictures when he's up there. He's not as jazzed up about this stuff as I am.
 
I planted a bunch black spruce and tamarack this spring when it was only wet. My guess is they are now dead from being under water to long. Heading out this weekend to find out.
 
Funny you say that I couldnt plant 3/4 of the trees where I wanted them. No way they would have survived that first month. We ended up with a pretty natural spread of mix and matched trees and shrubs. Def doesnt look like robots plugged them in sequence. Only thing I did as a unit was 2 boxes fenced in with 12 wild plums per box. We also put 15 loblolly x pitch pines around a new tower stand hoping that someday I can trim the tops from inside the blind when they get too tall. Natural camo :)
 
They lob/pitch were 16 cents a piece from MDC. I got 100 as a throw in with my order tonsee what they do. Spruce are slow growers and im planting in the woods in half ass sun already. I wanted some instant gratification i guess. I only caged the wolf river, whitney crab, dolgo crab and the plums. Everything else will be a crapshoot. We have deer but not alot of deer living on our land. We are between A and B and have a ton of activity on our land with firewood foodplots grandkids etc etc. Most days u could do a 10 man drive 2 hours before I hunt and I wouldnt even care.
 
You
Let us know how they do for you. I couldn't get them to survive winters in central or southcentral WI
Add me to the group that had a failed effort with them. I had a few that made it a couple years but eventually they all died.
 
I planted some hybrid oaks 3 years ago, they were doing really fine, went out to the farm yesterday, all leaves were yellow, too much rain. 19" since May 1
 
Let us know how they do for you. I couldn't get them to survive winters in central or southcentral WI
Me too. I planted 100 last year and they all died last winter.
 
I planted a bunch black spruce and tamarack this spring when it was only wet. My guess is they are now dead from being under water to long. Heading out this weekend to find out.

That's my fear. I planted 3200 spruce and pine in a field with heavy ground and hope they didn't get drowned out. I'm looking at around 12" of rain since april but the field was saturated before that from snow melt.
 
Boy you got me thinking I wasted my time on those pines then. The $16 is minor but plantimg 100 bareroots takes time. Plugs are the way to go. 10x easier. Plugs and shrubs for me from now on. Next year spicebush, elderberry, rdosier dogwood.
 
Most of mine seemed to put on pretty good growth in a month. There were some that did not make it, possibly being in spots that were a bit too wet. But it did seem like the larger plugs (77 vs 4a) were more likely to have been dead based on my observations.

Here are a couple of mine 1 month after planted:

White Spruce 4a



Here are some bigger norway spruce 77 size plugs:

 
Where can you get a tool for planting 4A plugs? Cost?

I need to talk Jim into making some more.
 
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