Caring for Thousands of Young Trees
With such pleasant weather here in the Northeast, we're getting many tasks done around my Bedford, New York farm.
My outdoor grounds crew is busy caring for all sorts of potted saplings I have waiting to be transplanted into the ground. These saplings, or young trees, were originally ordered as bare-root cuttings, which are plants that are removed from the earth while dormant and stored without any soil surrounding their roots. I order some every spring and then nurture them in containers behind my stable for a couple of years until they are ready to plant in more permanent locations.
Enjoy these photos.
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- I keep thousands of potted young trees in this area behind my stable, where they can be closely monitored and well-watered. Every few months, we take stock of the inventory, and do some maintenance work to these saplings – these need to be weeded, fed and re-organized into neat and tidy rows.
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- We always reuse and repurpose supplies whenever we can. Here’s Fernando laying down weed cloth left over from another project. This cloth will help keep weeding to a minimum.
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- It can sometimes get quite windy on this side of the farm, so Fernando also folds the edge of the weed cloth and hammers two nails to keep the cloth secure.
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- These nails are also left over from a previous project and are now perfect for this one. Reuse, repurpose, and recycle.
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- Pete also uses these three-inch nails to create usable stakes for this area that will keep the pots from tipping over. He removes the round head from the nail and then hammers it into one end of this stake.
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- Then, Pete hammers the stake into the ground in front of the trees.
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- And secures specialized tree-staking rope to the stakes. This soft polypropylene tree-staking material has a unique weave with a round edge on all sides to prevent tree bark damage – it won’t cut into the tree bark, or unravel like rope or string, and is easy to install.
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- Here, one can see how the rope corrals the trees in the space – hopefully, this will keep them all standing strong through the cold season.
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- All the trees are weeded and then moved into tight rows. Pete leaves a narrow space in between different varieties. These trees are easier to identify now because they all have leaves on their branches, but come winter, most of these trees will be bare. Markers identifying the trees are placed in the first pot of each row.
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- As each pot is placed in line, Fernando drops a small scoop of Osmocote into the soil.
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- Osmocote is a controlled-release fertilizer. A polymer yellowish coating made from resin and vegetable oil covers the small balls of fertilizer, called prills, allowing a slow release of nutrients.
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- Jude “JJ” Junior and Truman “TJ” Junior watch all the activity from the back window of their stall. These donkeys are actually stepping on a riser placed right under the opening, so they can see what’s happening outside.
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- I also have many young specimen plantings in an area next to my hay barn not far from my Equipment Barn.
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- To keep all the trees in one location, I instructed Pete and Fernando to move the trees to the stable area.
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- These are the leaves of Robinia pseudoacacia, commonly known as black locust, a medium-sized hardwood deciduous tree, belonging to the tribe Robinieae. The leaves are pinnate with 7 to 21 oval leaflets.
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- Some of the other trees include these white spruce trees, Picea glauca, a species of spruce native to the northern temperate and boreal forests in North America.
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- Its needles are four-sided, sharp, and stiff, and are arranged spirally on the twigs – they become pleasant smelling with age.
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- These leaves are from the Paperbark maple, Acer griseum, a species of flowering plant in the family Sapindaceae, native to central China. Paperbark maple is a small, deciduous tree with a neat, compact shape. Trees typically grow 20 to 30 feet in height with an equal sized spread. The trunk is short and the canopy is oval or rounded. The blunt, toothed leaves are opposite and trifoliate, meaning it has three leaflets.
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- Its interesting and showy bark is orange to cinnamon reddish-brown.
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- I have several maple varieties in my collection – they are all beginning to change to their beautiful fall colors.
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- The Autumn Blaze maple will be a gorgeous orange-red later this season. Acer × freemanii, Freeman maple or Freeman’s maple, is a naturally occurring hybrid maple that is a cross between Acer rubrum and Acer saccharinum. They can grow as fast as three feet per year under the right conditions.
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- The Autumn Fantasy maple is a popular red maple prized as a shade tree and for its wonderful red fall color.
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- Another beautiful maple tree is the October Glory maple. This tree grows rapidly into an attractive oval shape. When established and secure the October Glory maple can grow more than three feet per year. At maturity the tree reaches between 40 to 50 feet in height with a 25 to 30 feet spread. The leaves are also three lobed.
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- Cladrastis kentukea, the Kentucky yellowwood or American yellowwood, is a species of Cladrastis native to the Southeastern United States. It is a nice medium-sized landscape tree with bright green foliage and smooth gray bark. A low-branching species, yellowwood has a rounded crown and grows 30 to 50 feet tall with a spread equal to its height.
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- Cornus racemosa, the northern swamp dogwood, gray dogwood or panicle dogwood, is a shrubby plant native to southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States. Gray dogwood is a thicket-forming, deciduous shrub that grows to 16 feet in height with greenish-white blossoms in open, terminal clusters. It blooms in mid-July, long after most dogwoods and other ornamental trees are done flowering.
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- Trees are very important to our environment – they help combat climate change, provide habitat and food for birds and other animals, and release oxygen for us to live. In fact, in one year, an acre of mature trees can provide enough oxygen for 18-people. I have planted thousands of trees since I purchased my Bedford, New York property. They look so pretty planted in allees, in groves, and as privacy hedges. I feel very strongly about giving back to the earth – the more trees planted, the better.
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