LoessHillsArcher
PMA Member
I just used a spade like a dibbler bar (shopping for dibbler bars today now. haha) and popped out a small chunk of sod. Stuck the spade in where the sod clump just came out and opened up a small opening rocking the spade back and forth. I think the key is if the roots were crazy long I just pulled the ends off with my hands. I'd rather have shorter well placed roots than try to pack and poorly place long roots, don't want J shaped roots. Then put the clump of sod back on top and stomp with the heel of my boot a few time to seel it up. Always have had nearly 100% survival with cedar doing this! Oaks we tend to treat a little nicer. haha
arm
Leg
Using 10' pvc conduit cut in half at angle, for tube stakes. 1/2". Tried shoving one in the ground at home, clay, and didn't get much depth. Sledge doesn't work great with the pvc flex. Most of the tubes are going into bottom ground that's moist right now, pry push right in and be fine. Post driver work in drier, rocky areas?
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HorseDoctor
PMA Member
IMO: You will be better off using metal conduit for stakes as opposed to pvc. At least works for me.
LoessHillsArcher
PMA Member
In my opinion a 5ft metal or PVC conduit pipe would be too short. We use 6-7’ steel Tpost and it’s really helpful having support of the tube the whole way up. Not as cost effective as conduit unless you can find a great deal on used posts. But as stated above people have used and had good luck with 5’ conduit. Once a tree gets 1-3' out of a tube they don't have much back bone and I'd be afraid any wind would topple the conduit support or buckle the tube if the conduit wasn't supporting high enough on the tube. We reuse all our Tpost so they're a investment but can be reused and always resold down the road for likely the same price paid assuming you bought used.
Dropped 140 more seedlings in a couple hours after work. Half cedars 1/4 red oaks and 1/4 Chinkapin oaks. Will tube tomorrow. This ground is mostly weeds, not much brome, makes planting MUCH easier.
Cedars like this one I just break off the bottom few days inches of roots vs trying to jam and curl the long roots in the hole.
Open the ground with a spade and pop the tree in. I’m definitely going to get a planting bar before next spring. Stronger nose and solid steal handle should work even better.
Rock the spade side to side and pull it out while leaving the roots down. Couple hard stomps with the heal of a boot and move on. Takes less than a minute per tree when you’re really moving. I like to go along and open up all the holes first then come back and put trees in. Goes faster and trees don’t sit out in the sun or wind and dry out.
As Paul preached letting tree roots dry out = guaranteed death. I like to soak mine in water for about 5-10 min before planting even. Let them soak up some water. Helps keep them wet while I plant them.
Planted this area so it’ll have just under 400 trees per acre. 12’ between trees, alternate oak and cedars. Then used just one oak species in one row. 10’ spacing between rows. Lord willing I’ll have thin these trees some year long down the road. Hopefully I'm cutting down cedars and leaving oaks every 24ft!
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Dropped 140 more seedlings in a couple hours after work. Half cedars 1/4 red oaks and 1/4 Chinkapin oaks. Will tube tomorrow. This ground is mostly weeds, not much brome, makes planting MUCH easier.
Cedars like this one I just break off the bottom few days inches of roots vs trying to jam and curl the long roots in the hole.
Open the ground with a spade and pop the tree in. I’m definitely going to get a planting bar before next spring. Stronger nose and solid steal handle should work even better.
Rock the spade side to side and pull it out while leaving the roots down. Couple hard stomps with the heal of a boot and move on. Takes less than a minute per tree when you’re really moving. I like to go along and open up all the holes first then come back and put trees in. Goes faster and trees don’t sit out in the sun or wind and dry out.
As Paul preached letting tree roots dry out = guaranteed death. I like to soak mine in water for about 5-10 min before planting even. Let them soak up some water. Helps keep them wet while I plant them.
Planted this area so it’ll have just under 400 trees per acre. 12’ between trees, alternate oak and cedars. Then used just one oak species in one row. 10’ spacing between rows. Lord willing I’ll have thin these trees some year long down the road. Hopefully I'm cutting down cedars and leaving oaks every 24ft!
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LoessHillsArcher
PMA Member
Wrapped up the tree planting on this area, will drop the rest in later this week and weekend. Mix of red, Chinkapin, and Concordia oaks with a cedar in between each. Trees were in pretty good shape from MDC. About half had the top nipped of them when I got them, then I left them untuned for a couple days and there was fresh deer poop and nipped ends on some more. They’ll bounce back quick I’m sure.
Hopefully they look like this in 7yrs!
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Hopefully they look like this in 7yrs!
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LoessHillsArcher
PMA Member
No tubes on cedars, just let them go and they do just fine. Deer will rub some but that’s ok I think. We haven’t caged any trees yet, just let tubes on them until the tree bust the tube off then I imagine they’ll be big enough to survive on their own. Hopefully anyway, by that time I’ll be too old and there may be too many to worry about, I hope anyway!!
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arm
Leg
Did some plantings this weekend. Not intentionally on earth day but let's just say it was. A few hundred oaks, maple and tried some bald cypress in wet areas because variety is fun. I'm always under the gun and never think to get many pictures. Pictures of the tubes is one group of the three, I tubed all of the trees.
Last year I did a mix of 200ish shrubs, all unprotected and all no longer existing. Planted 50 wild plums with cages. Half I used fabric just to see what happens. I planted these all in one area thinking of a nice thicket. In hindsight, I should have split it up into multiple thickets of 15-20 plums. I mowed and scraped with the bucket to get a flat clean surface as possible. Fabric was interesting, not sure I'll do that again
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Last year I did a mix of 200ish shrubs, all unprotected and all no longer existing. Planted 50 wild plums with cages. Half I used fabric just to see what happens. I planted these all in one area thinking of a nice thicket. In hindsight, I should have split it up into multiple thickets of 15-20 plums. I mowed and scraped with the bucket to get a flat clean surface as possible. Fabric was interesting, not sure I'll do that again
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LoessHillsArcher
PMA Member
Love it, looks great!!!
LoessHillsArcher
PMA Member
Dropped another 120 oaks in this weekend, hoping we get some rain soon. It’s dry out there. Just 80 more cedars to go and I’m done for the year... and maybe for a couple more. Bit off a little more than I could chew this year!
3 years ago Dad and I planted a bunch of trees in this area and never tubed them... this is an example of the ones I could find. Lived through brome and deer browsing. I assume they’ve got some excellent roots and will grow fast now that they’re tubed!
Planting in to unskilled sod grasses like brome is the worse but I would clear away as much surface debris with the heal of my boot and then pop out the top few inches of dirt where all the tough roots are. Then open up the dirt by rocking the spade back and forth, stick the roots in, pull the spade out, and finishing setting the roots at the proper depth. Then seal them up
I had some big help this weekend, when turkey hunting wasn’t panning out he quickly offered to help and kept things entertaining with the never ending stories!
Now time to spray around each tree tube. Likely won’t plant any next year but after that will try to do a couple hundred each yr or every other year.
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3 years ago Dad and I planted a bunch of trees in this area and never tubed them... this is an example of the ones I could find. Lived through brome and deer browsing. I assume they’ve got some excellent roots and will grow fast now that they’re tubed!
Planting in to unskilled sod grasses like brome is the worse but I would clear away as much surface debris with the heal of my boot and then pop out the top few inches of dirt where all the tough roots are. Then open up the dirt by rocking the spade back and forth, stick the roots in, pull the spade out, and finishing setting the roots at the proper depth. Then seal them up
I had some big help this weekend, when turkey hunting wasn’t panning out he quickly offered to help and kept things entertaining with the never ending stories!
Now time to spray around each tree tube. Likely won’t plant any next year but after that will try to do a couple hundred each yr or every other year.
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arm
Leg
I ordered enough tubes this year to reach the discount pricing tier and plan to put the extras over some unprotected SIX year old plantings that are anywhere from 6" to 2'. Hoping like you said, roots will be well established and will grow up like crazy.
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Hardwood11
It is going to be a good fall!
Those oaks are going to be something someday! Raining acorns
LoessHillsArcher
PMA Member
Chinkapin, reds, and Concordia. All we got naturally are burs so I’m pumped to add to the diversity!!
Here’s some reds going on their 7th growing season, it really is amazing how fast they grow!
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LoessHillsArcher
PMA Member
Sprayed tubes oaks today, got behind and knew that this could wait until later in spring since the tubes protect the tree even after they’ve leafed out. Here’s the mix I put in my backpack sprayer (note the small Oust XP bottle is the same as the SFM larger bottle on the right, the SFM is cheaper though, only use one of them, a little goes a longggg ways with that stuff.)
I ended up spraying ~700-800 trees and used about 3/4 of the tank I’d say. I’ve learned a little spray goes a long way and this chemical does control a larger area than you spray. Rains will move it into the soil. It works great! Fun to walk around and see the oaks waking up!
Even the smallest one I started from acorn a couple years ago and neglected since
The tubes are a must for a tree planting IMO. Obvious reason is protection but the rate of growth is nuts. Check out the amount of new growth in this red oak already. Most other trees have just broke bud.
The main down fall is mice... here’s one that mice had a nest in, killed the original tree and a sprout grew outside of the tube. Who knows how many years ago that happened but the unprotected oak was about 3ft tall. So I pruned down to one main leader and put a tube on it
I know I’ve shared pics of this planting a hundred times but I’ve been in the position where I just started tree planting and it seemed like a waste of time. These oaks would never turn into trees. Always dying, mice nest in the winter, drought in the summer, bucks in the fall, late frost in the spring, etc etc. but patience is huge and in really a short time you’ll go from 12” sticks to 12’+ trees!
The oaks I planted this spring are starting to wake up too! And the next batch of future giant oaks trees has begun!
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I ended up spraying ~700-800 trees and used about 3/4 of the tank I’d say. I’ve learned a little spray goes a long way and this chemical does control a larger area than you spray. Rains will move it into the soil. It works great! Fun to walk around and see the oaks waking up!
Even the smallest one I started from acorn a couple years ago and neglected since
The tubes are a must for a tree planting IMO. Obvious reason is protection but the rate of growth is nuts. Check out the amount of new growth in this red oak already. Most other trees have just broke bud.
The main down fall is mice... here’s one that mice had a nest in, killed the original tree and a sprout grew outside of the tube. Who knows how many years ago that happened but the unprotected oak was about 3ft tall. So I pruned down to one main leader and put a tube on it
I know I’ve shared pics of this planting a hundred times but I’ve been in the position where I just started tree planting and it seemed like a waste of time. These oaks would never turn into trees. Always dying, mice nest in the winter, drought in the summer, bucks in the fall, late frost in the spring, etc etc. but patience is huge and in really a short time you’ll go from 12” sticks to 12’+ trees!
The oaks I planted this spring are starting to wake up too! And the next batch of future giant oaks trees has begun!
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LoessHillsArcher
PMA Member
Things are getting dry fast around here - not looking like a good start for this years tree planting...
Wanted to share something I’ve struggled with when it comes to growing trees is tubes on trees such as hickory and walnut. Their pinnate leaf structure is different than an oak meaning they have larger leaf structures making them get really really cramped in even the largest tree tubes I used. We lost a lot of trees because they just couldn’t find their way to the top of the tube, they almost trapped themselves in you could say. Anyone else ever had this issue with hickory or walnut trees?
Here’s my solution, it’s not one I’d suggest on a large scale. I’m going to be using tree cages on walnuts we have planted in the farm as well, these trees are just in our yard. I took two blue ProTex tubes and put them together to form one large tube. The next issue was staking and keeping the tube in a round shape during windy days or storms. I use one T post to hold the tube but also use 2 or 3 pieces of 1/2” electrical conduit INSIDE the tube to give it the necessary support. Worked perfect!
I know I’ve seen pictures on this thread in the past and people have talked about using metal conduit and putting it on the inside, I doubted its ability to support a tree but at first glance it seems really strong! We will see how they hold up in the first windy day! It may be a great alternative to using T post like mentioned a couple pages ago!
I’d plant our whole yard to trees if someone would let me, love growing trees!
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Wanted to share something I’ve struggled with when it comes to growing trees is tubes on trees such as hickory and walnut. Their pinnate leaf structure is different than an oak meaning they have larger leaf structures making them get really really cramped in even the largest tree tubes I used. We lost a lot of trees because they just couldn’t find their way to the top of the tube, they almost trapped themselves in you could say. Anyone else ever had this issue with hickory or walnut trees?
Here’s my solution, it’s not one I’d suggest on a large scale. I’m going to be using tree cages on walnuts we have planted in the farm as well, these trees are just in our yard. I took two blue ProTex tubes and put them together to form one large tube. The next issue was staking and keeping the tube in a round shape during windy days or storms. I use one T post to hold the tube but also use 2 or 3 pieces of 1/2” electrical conduit INSIDE the tube to give it the necessary support. Worked perfect!
I know I’ve seen pictures on this thread in the past and people have talked about using metal conduit and putting it on the inside, I doubted its ability to support a tree but at first glance it seems really strong! We will see how they hold up in the first windy day! It may be a great alternative to using T post like mentioned a couple pages ago!
I’d plant our whole yard to trees if someone would let me, love growing trees!
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Sure looks like it!
Jordan- I’ve done walnuts. Walnuts, in my experience- do not get messed with like oaks. They DO get rubbed but they don’t get nibbled like oaks. My solution there has been shorter tubes. Or- yep- cage would work. Heck- I unloaded 2 truck loads of walnuts & broadcast em & they took & grew really nice. I “suspect” the poor taste of leaves and bark are why maybe mine get left alone. Maybe I’m imagining this too. Just always seemed to have less problems that oaks, etc.
Jordan- I’ve done walnuts. Walnuts, in my experience- do not get messed with like oaks. They DO get rubbed but they don’t get nibbled like oaks. My solution there has been shorter tubes. Or- yep- cage would work. Heck- I unloaded 2 truck loads of walnuts & broadcast em & they took & grew really nice. I “suspect” the poor taste of leaves and bark are why maybe mine get left alone. Maybe I’m imagining this too. Just always seemed to have less problems that oaks, etc.