First Try Planting John's Cuttings

[strawhead]

Finished yesterday planting 3 areas of hybrid bucky poplars. Followed John's recommendations on the longest strip, but planted a little denser on the 2 shorter strips.

 

[Ogemaone]

Keep us posted on growth, that's next on my list of projects.

 

[jlonll]

Finished yesterday planting 3 areas of hybrid bucky poplars. Followed John's recommendations on the longest strip, but planted a little denser on the 2 shorter strips. View attachment 5345View attachment 5346 View attachment 5347

You might want to put some rocks or something on the fabric to hold down. Wind will get under an make a mess.

 

[strawhead]

You might want to put some rocks or something on the fabric to hold down. Wind will get under an make a mess.

Fabric is held down with staples.

Keep us posted on growth, that's next on my list of projects.

I will post pics at later growth(hopefully). I have about 25 left that I am going to just stick in the ground in a couple of areas that I want to take a shot of thickening up. I don't know what to expect with that.

 

[John-W-WI]

With the recent rains, they should be knee high by the 4th of July!

Thanks for posting,

-John

 

[NWWI]

Water the living day lights out of them!

 

[bueller]

Water the living day lights out of them!

Yea I wouldn't dare plant them this late in my sand.

 

[wiscwhip]

Yea I wouldn't dare plant them this late in my sand.

Back before the days of circle irrigators on every other 40 up there, I wouldn't have been so sure bueller. If you could have got an 8' cutting buried 7' in that sand, just the depth of your water table might have been enough for those willows to do fine, even this late or later. Since the upper level sands of that whole aquifer get sucked dry every summer now irrigating corn instead of supplying deep rooted trees with water, I think you are correct, you would have no chance.

 

[bueller]

Back before the days of circle irrigators on every other 40 up there, I wouldn't have been so sure bueller. If you could have got an 8' cutting buried 7' in that sand, just the depth of your water table might have been enough for those willows to do fine, even this late or later. Since the upper level sands of that whole aquifer get sucked dry every summer now irrigating corn instead of supplying deep rooted trees with water, I think you are correct, you would have no chance.

Speaking of irrigation, a system was just installed on the field 1/2 mile north of me this year. This field has been farmed forever without irrigation but not anymore.

strawhead, good luck with the cuttings and be sure to let us know how they did. I planted some Hybrid Poplar OP-367 and dappled willows back in April. Can't wait to get back up to check on them.

 

[West Branch]

Last year I did two of the Jake kits, 1 was bucky and the other OP-367. I started them at home during the winter, moved into 1 gallon pots in late spring and transplanted into the ground later on as screen along a. Out of 36 over half were 6.5+ ft tall by the end of the summer in zone 3b and the rest were 4.5+ ft. Tops ended up getting snapped off of some either due to winds or birds landing on them. By this spring they also had a lot of deer browse and none were more than ~5 ft. Every branch sticking out on the buckys was browsed. I am hoping the browsing and tops that got snapped off make them branch out a lot more this year.

I started another 2 bunches of Jake kits this spring, all buckys this time. They definitely did a lot more branching compared to the 367s.

 

[strawhead]

Yea I wouldn't dare plant them this late in my sand.

I have fairly heavy clay. I was concerned about a killing freeze where I am. I'm glad I didn't plant earlier as we did get to 26 for a good portion of the night just a couple days ago. May not have hurt them if they had been in.

You'll probably have more issues with browsing than wind if you have any deer in the area. I planted 25 hp Bucky in 2011. The deer left them alone until August then decided they were worth eating. They were anywhere from 3-6' tall by then. I only had a couple smaller blocks planted so I put some 5' fence around them. After the following year they were tall enough to remove the fence. I planted 400 in 2012 and basically depended on volume, although I caged the outside row with mesh tubes.

I'm hoping we have enough variety to give them to keep the browsing down, but I expect some loss.
Thanks for all the replies, I have some norway spruce planted outside of the cuttings.

 

[strawhead]

Finished yesterday planting 3 areas of hybrid bucky poplars. Followed John's recommendations on the longest strip, but planted a little denser on the 2 shorter strips. View attachment 5345View attachment 5346 View attachment 5347

Will be 2 wks tomorrow that have they have been planted.

 

[strawhead]

Left area has some browse pressure. The right pics a doing much better. The center is doing the best and I need to get rid of the competition along the edge of the outside rows. I am happy with the growth of everything considering the browse pressure.

 

[bueller]

Nice job, looks like every damn one you planted is growing :D

 

[Spiider]

A few squirts of Deer Stopper Concentrate from Amazon goes a long way to keep the animals off them while they establish.

 

[strawhead]

This is where we're at with our cuttings from last year. Deer killed over half of one strip by browsing last Sept. The other strip(attached) was browsed but came back strong this year. We are using deer stopper this year.