Tree Planting

[LoessHillsArcher]

Thoughts on planting cedars and spruce in the fall instead of spring? Didn't get to it this spring.

Shoot, wish I could help you out but I've never done it. I don't see why it wouldn't work though?



Did some work on the tree plantings tonight, just checking up on them, pulling weeds near the trees, bracing a couple trees, and chopping down thistles

Some crazy growth on the trees this year. Talk about a great start to the growing season. Many trees have put on 12-24" of growth on already and they're likely to do more yet!

There are many more popped out of the tubes in the last week with more on their way!

The direct seeded acorns are on their way to putting on a second flush of growth

White oak doing very well

Chinkapin oak that continues to show off to the rest of the trees... if only they all would do this!

More on their way out of the tubes!

Direct seeded acorn

You may have noticed a lot more weeds this year... that was intentional. I've done no herbicide application this year. I've sprayed these trees the past three years and it held the weeds back very well. Almost too well. I feel like it left the soil so exposed it let it get baked by the sun and open for errosion. This year I did not spray and the goldenrod came in thick but that's ok. I've just been pulling some of the weeds by hand and laying them down to cover the soil. Trees are doing great with the little extra weed competition

Checked on the transplanted cedars and they all looked amazing! Lots of new growth on them! You can't see them in this picture... but they are under the sea of grass/weeds

 

[Barrett's Dad]

LHA - wow, that's a lot of trees...great work.

Do you think you could nuke the weeds now with Gly to take out some of the soil moisture competition? Then the dead weeds would fall back to the ground and become a mulch for your trees in the tubes and keep the hot sun from baking the soil? ....and the now established weed roots would help keep the soil in place?

Just a thought. I have held back on spraying my tree plantings this summer for a similar reason, but I think the dead weed matter will serve as a mulch and hold the soil in place for us (most everything we have here on our PA piece is on a slope). I am headed to do some spraying this weekend. I will snap some pics to see how things work out, before and after (most of my stuff is in chicken wire cages - haven't had great luck with tubes so far).

 

[LoessHillsArcher]

Thanks! I've thought about doing that with round-up and I'm sure it would work. I honestly don't have a good answer as to why I haven't. Right now I'm just pulling the weeds around the tubes and only in places where it is really thick. Other wise I like the cover they provide to stop the hard rains from really beating the crap out of the bare soil. Here is an example of what happened over the past three years in this planting (which is on a fairly sloped area) when I applied heavy residual herbicides and left the soil bare around the trees... see that errosion? The soil in the tube would be nearly 1" higher than the soil around it after a year of washing away.

The hard rains had a direct impact at the soil and it was easily washed away. I'm getting off on a tangent here but yes, a guy could just apply gly around the tubes and get the same effect. I'm just pulling some of the weeds and laying them down around the area to still keep the rain for having direct hits against the soil.

 

[Barrett's Dad]

Yes, I remember seeing that pic or a similar one where you had erosion around the tube. What you are doing makes sense to me...and I guess moisture hasn't been an issue this spring in Iowa to worry about the weeds sucking too much away from seedling.

Most of my plantings are in openings in the woods...so I don't like to see the tall weeds around my seedling stealing both the soil moisture and the available sunlight. I have been hand-pulling as well, but now I have too many seedlings going to keep up with the pulling by hand method. I'm hoping this weekend's gly treatment keeps me ahead of the weeds enough to maximize growth in the seedlings.

I know I said it before, but holy cow...you have a lot of trees planted! I like your plan to diversify the oaks on your property. Keep up the incredible habitat work!

 

[LoessHillsArcher]

Exactly! If water and sun are a concern then you are spot on with wanting to keep weeds at bay. Tree plantings sure are fun stuff! Someday I'll make a post showing what this one looked like at day one vs now, 4 yrs later. It has changed quite a bit. Cool to see what they can do in 4 yrs!

 

[Sligh1]

Look back on Iowa geographic map server at your farms or any farms you hunt now, look at 1930's all the way to 80's, 90's, 2000's. I have ground that had corn & Beans on it in 2006 and now deer LIVE IN IT with 8-10' foot cedars. I'll take some pics later. It goes by fast

Here's my tamed back backyard this year. All trees from last year are at farm now in nursery. these are only new chestnuts among my garden of variety. The trees that filled rootmakers and started to outgrow, I assessed some when ready and you can see I pulled some out to put in 1 gallon rootmaker pots. I tried some different soil types and absolutely had better success with certain soils. night & day. here's pic of the little project (vs last year where you can see my empty pots - self proclaimed hillbilly of the development. Luckily, I'm at end lot all fenced in.

 

[bbussewitz]

Sligh1 and others, as posted on another thread:

I have newly planted (April) Red Cedars and Nannyberry's. Can I safely backpack spray gly or 2,4d around them to hold back some encroaching weeds? The grasses remain nuked from early spring Oust. The plantings are thriving but I want to remove the competition to maximize first year growth.

My only other option is to hand pull them but there are 800, so that would be some work.

thanks.

 

[LoessHillsArcher]

Sligh1 and others, as posted on another thread:

I have newly planted (April) Red Cedars and Nannyberry's. Can I safely backpack spray gly or 2,4d around them to hold back some encroaching weeds? The grasses remain nuked from early spring Oust. The plantings are thriving but I want to remove the competition to maximize first year growth.

My only other option is to hand pull them but there are 800, so that would be some work.

thanks.

You can, but be very careful to not get any (even a mist) on the young trees. Some people put a bucket on a stick and hold that over the trees while they spray around them. Personally, I like to just take a machete and chop the weeds away from them.

 

[Sligh1]

Weed whipper other option if careful? I've done back pack sprayer for years with angled nozzle & big water droplets. Careful. I've never killed a tree yet.

 

[letemgrow]

I prefer having weeds grow around my seedlings once they are big enough to pull off the tubes. Tough to see a 4-6" diameter tree rubbed raw by bucks that have been tended to "perfectly" with weed control. Just puts a bulls-eye on them IMO.

 

[LoessHillsArcher]

I prefer having weeds grow around my seedlings once they are big enough to pull off the tubes. Tough to see a 4-6" diameter tree rubbed raw by bucks that have been tended to "perfectly" with weed control. Just puts a bulls-eye on them IMO.

Yup, great point Phil, we've noticed the same thing! We used to keep our shrubs weed free through whatever means we could only to watch them get thrashed by deer each fall. Last year I left the weeds go around them and the shrubs took off! Their roots were well established by now so weed control wasn't as big of a concern and the bucks left them alone for the most part.

 

[JayEC]

Planted trees this Spring and have just found quite a few oaks are almost completely eaten by Japanese Beatles. Will they sprout new growth after the Beatles are gone?

 

[LoessHillsArcher]

Jay, I'd say if the tree was young and didn't have much of a rootsystem established it will really set the tree back and possibly kill it. We've noticed the same problem on some this year. Bugs ate all the leaves and the tree never sprouted any new leaves, in our case the tree is dead I'm certain. Hopefully your trees have established themselves enough they bounce back!

 

[LoessHillsArcher]

Instead of cluttering this thread up I went ahead and made a new post in the general habitat forum. It shows a series of pictures of the progression of one of our tree plantings that is now in its 4th growing season.

A 4yr Picture Time Lapse of a Tree Planting

 

[JayEC]

Thanks Jordan, I got them in really early and with all the moisture we've had, they were doing really well. In the picture I attached, the leaves look a lot more brown than they actually are, so I'm hoping they'll survive. Has anyone tried Sevin? Either powder or spray? I have some powder on hand that I might try on some of them with & without beatles to see if it helps.

 

[LoessHillsArcher]

Has anyone tried Sevin? Either powder or spray? I have some powder on hand that I might try on some of them with & without beatles to see if it helps.

Funny you mention that, I was going to try that on them as well. I've got a few up at the shed that I'll spray with sevin when I spray the garden next time and I'll report back it's effects on the young oaks and the bugs!

 

[Turkey Creek]

Sevin controls Japanese beetles well. However it does have a short residual period so needs to be applied fairly frequently.

 

[JayEC]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll give it a try!

 

[Jbohn]

I have some extra tree plugs from native nursery. I do I keep them alive till the spring can I just pot and leave them out side ?

 

[Turkey Creek]

If you can plant them in your garden or someplace similar over winter that would be better than pots. Water them in well and protect from rabbits. Transplant them in spring before they break dormancy.