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Join Me To Plant Trees At Nine Mile Farm on 12-12-15 — 14 Comments

  1. Where would I get 40 black locust trees now at a good price? Where did you get your trees, if you dont mind me asking? Is now a better time to plant black locust trees then spring when I can get them through the state tree program?

    Thanks and good luck with the trees.

    • I second the Cold Stream Farms reference. I’ve gotten waxmyrtle from them before, they were excellent quality. Keep in mind, these will be bear root trees (rooted 1 year live stakes most likely) similar to what you would get from a state tree program or the arbor day foundation.

      Locust is very good for live stakes (the simplest propagation method I know of).
      If you have 1 year old whips on an established tree, they can be cut in 3-4′ lengths and hammered 4/5 of the way into the ground right now (before winter). They will root during the winter, and leaf out in spring. From one large tree, you can get a hundred new trees very easily. Also, no digging is needed for planting, you just hammer them in.

      Success rates are usually around 50% with locust and maple. 70%+ with birch, aspen, willow, dogwood and mulberry. About 25% with walnut and chestnut.

      Article here explains it well. http://permaculturenews.org/2015/05/07/live-stake-propagation/
      They use rebar to start the hole. It’s not necessary (unless you hit rocks).

  2. Good luck on the Robinia. Many outstanding qualities, but I have found them extremely invasive. Outstanding thorns.

  3. Thanks Jack for Hosting. All, I will be traveling to the site from Greenville, Tx via IH30, State183, IH820 and then to Nine Mile Farm. If you need a ride and you can arrange yourself along this route, I will be happy to slow my old pickup to 7 MPH so you can dive into the bed and have a ride. I plan on being at NMF by 9:30am, so please plan your pickup accordingly.

  4. Looking forward to it! I have 3 open seats myself, I’m coming from Farmers Branch/ North Dallas area and heading there via 121 to 820.

  5. Possibly coming from Austin up the i35 corridor, anyone want to ride with me?

    I’ll have 3 seats for sure, can probably swing 4 (super crew)..

  6. Crap, it’s 12/12… I’m a no-go (have plans, thought it was 12/13… need to learn to read through things better)

    • If it ain’t rainer you ain’t trainen!

      Seriously we just jumped from 40% to 80% so I just don’t know yet, I will wait till tomorrow to make the call.

      The big issues are

      1. We have severe weather forcasted

      2. If we get a lot of rain then we end up making a huge mess during the work and that sets things backward.

      My gut right now is I am going to have to cancel. I am waiting for a weather update tomorrow to see more about the timing because I already know what is going to happen.

      The weather guessers will be idiots and forecast Noah’s flood in the AM it will barely rain until 4-5 when everyone would be on the way home an I will inconvenience you guys and get no work done at the same time.

      However if I don’t cancel we will have driving rains first thing in the AM, everyone will be miserable, any work we try to do will make the land into a big mess, etc.

      Right now I am thinking about punting and pushing this till Sunday the 20th but I realize that may not work for everyone who wanted to come.

      Fricken cursed is what my events are, 0% rain for 10 days except the one day we scheduled this for. Moving to Sunday this week doesn’t work because if we get the rain forecasted it will be a big mess when we try to do the work.

      Sigh. Stay tuned.