Habitat project

[Mr. Fran]

Hi, Last spring my wife and I started a project with a young boy that had been ran over with a tractor. He really loves the outdoors and seeing wildlife. His parents agreed to let us enhance a 4 acre area of gully. Not to good for farming, but great for wildlife habitat. Through small donations we were able to purchase a couple hundred trees. The problem is the landscape is mostly sloping, and has a small drainage creek in the bottom. Alot of the soil can't be worked up for planting. What we did was use a post hole digger for the larger seedlings and try to shoe most of them. This was alot of work. Some of the trees were rooted cuttings. This brought me to the conclusion that it might be easier and less expensive to plant cuttings on our own and hope they take.
I was able to find some info on tree cuttings but no info on large scale planting. Only in plastic pots, etc.. Are we on the right track? Can we still make little Tony's dream come true?
In order to finish the project this spring we still need to put a couple thousand trees in.
I'll be honest, I'm still learning as I go. The land is in Kewaunee County WI. The idea is to plant as much native trees and shrubs as possible to offer both food and cover. So far we used white pine, bur oak, poplar, and ceder. It would be nice to stick with fast growing stock as well. Of course the cost is a big factor. (Tony's parents are still paying for the re-constructive surgery he had to his face.) I don't know what kind of funds I can gather this spring. But I am determined to see this through.
Does anyone have some ideas for us?
Thank You

[Tom]

Bless your heart Mr. Fran.
Welcome to the forum.

Rooting  some trees in place from cuttings should be easy enough if done at the right time of year.   Chemicals like Rootone will help to get the cutting thinking about producing roots.   I've done a lot of it in pots. I've done some in the ground.  There is little difference.

Not all plants will root.

You can also "layer" from a healthy growing plant.  That is a pretty good way to get a stick to root.  You can wound the stick, put on a rooting chemical, wrap it in wet peat moss and wrap that in aluminum foil with the ends wired shut.   You leave the stick attached to the tree.  After a period of time, when the roots develop, you cut the stick off and put it in the ground.  This has the benifit of the mother tree feeding the stick.   You can also bend one over, wound it and bury the wound in the ground. 

There are several ways of producing roots and all are viable. 

It sounds like a fun project.  Be sure that you take pictures.  It would make a good story to tell on the forum, pictures and all.  Maybe the boy would like to get involved with the forum.  We have some very knowledgeable Foresters here. 

[Larry]

A lot of states sell bare root seedlings at low cost.  I just purchased few hundred from Missouri and the price ranged from $3 to $7 per 25 bundle.  Low cost planting tool is just a spade where you cut a slit, push the tree in, and push the slit closed with your foot.  Dribble bar is really the tool...should be able to buy one from Forestry Suppliers for maybe $30 including shipping.  I can plant maybe 500/day...and I'm old, slow, and lazy.

Ground preparation is essential to keep the grass and weeds from choking out the trees...don't know what you would use in your area...it's to late for fall preparation.

Maybe ya could get Boy Scouts interested in doing a little project...sounds like a fun and interesting thing to do.  Maybe get the state interested in donating trees?

And welcome to the FF...guess you searched us out trying to help somebody which is kinda cool. 8) 8)

[Ianab]

Poplar is a good species to grow from cuttings. You can usually get away with just cutting a stick and poking it in the ground  ;)
Well for best results do it in the early spring, just before the leaves form. You can cut fairly large sticks, maybe 2 or 3" dia and 4 or 5 ft long and just plant it like a fence post. 90% of them will grow. Some rooting hormone and a bit of water if it gets dry wont hurt either.  

The other species may be more difficult to propogate, but can still be done. The cuttings from those trees need to be smaller and are best started off in pots then planted out once they are established.

So even if you end up planting more of the poplars and mixing in a few of the other species to get your mixed forest it should cut your costs a lot and still get a nice area.

Cheers

Ian

[beenthere]

Mr Fran
This month (or next week) if you have not already been in contact with the WI DNR district forester, call him(her) and learn about the WI tree seedling program. Also, the forester will give you good advice on the species that this land will support and the species that will be best for wildlife (and not some that are also very invasive, that are not recommended anymore). Tree orders get booked fast, and hopefully not too late.

Check out Wisconsin Forestry
for info and the District Forester for your county.

[LedlieLogs]

Mr. Fran = Good Man. Mr. Fran I run a camp for kids when not working my real job and we had a bad pine beetle run a few years back. The local Corp of Engineers forester came out and helped with tree chioce as Beenthere said. We then got the trees donated from Trust for Trees. We did a seconed planting at the property next  to ours last year and did a matching funds program with the same folks. Also check with the Wild Turkey Federation and The Nation Rifle Association and groups like these, they will often have small funding programs for projects like this. It helps that you own guns and love to hunt turkeys and so forth and so on. PM me if I can help.
If I recall correctly the trees arrived UPS.

[Mr. Fran]

Thank you for your ideas and help. Some of the trees that I would like to plant would be fir, spruce, sumac, crab, and I need to come up with a fast mast tree. Some kind of oak or hickery or something. Some of this process is still a little new to me, especially when it comes to tree species and growth rates.