Chief River Nursery in Wisconsin was our source for 100 (plus a few extra) black hills spruce seedlings and river birch that the rabbits got into and clipped a few. Both have been doing very well for the little amount of rain so far this year.
Stark Brothers out of Missouri was our source for a couple of grafted pecan trees and a dozen blackberries. We thought we lost a few of the blackberries as I didn't think I hardened them off well enough but all are responding well with good growth. We decided to try a couple of nectarines to add to our fruit trees and they are doing well. The pecans? Here's a look:
Stark Brothers have discounted many of their plants and we decided to add gala and red delicious apple trees to our small orchard, adding two more nectarines and started a vineyard with three grapevines. We planted these on 6/14 and on the 17th they looked well coming our of dormancy.
Henry Fields was where we got a couple of butternut starts and a few more pecan seedlings. I'm reserving judgement right now as this has been a difficult start of the year. One of the butternuts is showing good growth but the second one is slow coming around. The pecans are a bit behind as well. We also tried some juneberries to add to our fruit section and all are doing well so far. Lastly, we got a couple of sweet cherry trees but have them potted right now instead of planted at the acreage.
Our local Lowes had a few larger blackberry plants that we added this year and a couple of nectarine trees. We purchased an 8ft red oak from them last year and planted in recognition of the Mrs and I being together 25 years and it's done well, so we decided to give them another chance.
Theissens had a couple of ranier cherry trees that were on sale, so we decided, "why not?" They look very good so far where we planted them just below the pond and caged up to protect them from deer.
My acorn sources have been native red, black and swamp white oaks around the area. The red oaks have had a nearly 99% germination rate while the swamp white oak have been disappointing. The germination rate of the neighbor's catalpa seeds have been at about 10%. Another neighbor's hard maple tree was very generous last fall and I have plenty of small starts so far. My red maples at the homestead also produced a good crop of seeds this year and I have about 25 potted "yearling" red maple seedlings ready to go.
If I get every seedling transplanted and every seed and acorn planted, we will have nearly 1200 trees in the ground this year.
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