Purchased and planted: 2 apple, one Italian prune plum, one peach. The apples do well. The prune plum was planted 4 or 5 years ago and hasn't produced anything yet. The peach was planted in spring of 23 and it doesn't look good this year. My parents have a crimson maple that spawns more around the edge of their yard. I've saved 8 of those and planted them on my property. They range from 4ft to 20ft tall now. I also save firs and cedars that I find sprouting up around my property. Once they're big enough, I find a place for them in the woods out back. The biggest one now is a fir about 6ft tall.
It’s a Christmas miracle. A squirrel finally planted a black walnut for me I collected a couple trash barrels full of walnuts last fall, and towards the end of the season I got sick of processing them and dumped out half a barrel about 30 feet away. This one popped up 15 feet from one I planted last year, so I’ll let it grow. I’m glad I was paying attention while pulling weeds today.
If I'm planting trees, we're playing ball. If I'm working on a vehicle, we're playing ball. If I'm splitting wood, we're playing ball.
My 2 year old black locust is really growing vigorously. This one week old sucker appeared out of nowhere, 5 feet from the mother tree. At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if the main tree flowers for the first time next May.
I picked up a new firewood customer today and he happens to run a garden center/nursery from his property. I checked out his website before making the delivery and saw that he sold several cultivars of pawpaw trees. We had a nice chat about tree nerd stuff and he gave me a few seeds. These’ll be a nice addition to the wild-type pawpaw trees I’m already growing at home. I’ll update the results in about 8-10 years
Pin oak seedlings. I collected the acorns last fall from a street tree the city had planted next to a commuter lot. Here’s an oddball I’ve been wanting to grow for a while. Bear oak. They’re a shrub sized oak that I don’t come across too often, since they’re pretty habitat specific. I gathered these acorns last fall fr the top of a dry rocky ridge. I have found them growing in lower areas before though, especially when the soil is sandy and nutrient deficient. To make them thrive in my yard I’ll have to build up a sandy mound somewhere, but I think they’ll make a good natural fence.
Thanks, that’s the goal in a few years. Get rid of invasive species and fill the backyard with native varieties. When I first moved in the only young trees growing were basically a bunch of maples. Now I’ve got several different kinds of oaks, a walnut, chestnuts, cherries, a dogwood, a holly, and a couple sassafras. I’m running out of space for trees though, so now I’m getting into native wildflowers and shrubs.
Does the chicken wire work for you? I tried that and once the trees got tall enough, squirrels reached in and pulled the plants out of the dirt. Lost 7 or 8 out of 12 trees that way.
This is the first year I’m trying it with the oak trees. I’m more worried about the chipmunks than the squirrels getting in there and going after the acorns. Once they get a bit taller I’ll probably put 1/2” hardware cloth on that one pot. In the fall when everything goes dormant they’ll get planted out somewhere.
I just planted a bunch of sugar maple trees and put the 60” version of these on them. I also found a few that germinated in the backyard and gave them some protection. The deer are brutal on my maple trees in the back yard. Tree Pro | Tree Protector - Plant Protector - Tree Grow Tubes
