I’ve been wanting to get some native trees to plant here and there, but I am having trouble finding sources that mail order and are reasonably priced. I just want small trees a year or two old, I don’t need 5-6’ trees. Does anyone have any recommendations?
Edit to add: I guess tubeling trees would be what I am looking for, but pretty much every nursery I can find only sells wholesale quantities.
Cold Stream Farm in Michigan has smaller native trees. Right now it looks like mostly everything is sold out but I imagine that is due to it being the end of the season. They advertise as a wholesale site but don’t seem have a minimum order requirement. This is from their site:
“Cold Stream Farm specializes in trees and shrubs for wildlife habitat. For more than four decades, we have been offering wholesale shrubs and bare root trees to residents throughout the Midwest. We offer discounts for large orders, and we have no minimum order limit in place.”
They offer small quantities, but their trees get A LOT cheaper if you buy 25 or more of any variety.
Here is an example for River Birch, (which they do still have in stock)
Often state forestry departments have “conservation” aka native tree sales. If not I bet one of your adjoining states does and many of them will ship out of state. Trees are usually 12-24" tall and very inexpensive.
Check your state government forestry department, or county. There are often local plant sales where you can by a bundle of trees/shrubs. I’m actually picking my order up this Friday for Iron County Wisconsin, 10 5ft oaks, 10 white pine and 25 white spruce. Cost was about $100.
Guess I should have been more specific, I’m hoping to find less common stuff like Halesia, Stewartia ovata, etc.
New Hampshire has a state run nursery. Great prices. I doubt the grow Halesia, but they do some oddball stuff like buttonbush and spicebush. I don’t know if they ship, but they do sell to anyone. Missouri does something similar I understand
Cold Stream, Missouri DNR, Pikes Peak Nurseries, Musser Nurseries
And a wholesale quantity is probably the same price as a retail option, so give some away to friends or donate to a local park would be my recommendation.
I assume you mean guerilla forestry, i.e. plant them in a local park? I’ve never heard of parks accepting tree donations formally, but it does sound like an interesting idea.
https://g.co/kgs/giuyzS
Also nearby is Woodlanders, another fantastic nursery with unusuals in natives.
Take a group of black nursery pots full of soil and set them near forest edge or near a city lot having many trees…you’ll get lots of small volunteer trees coming up…
I could supply 100 hackberry…(but I am not offering).
I’ve used Go Native in PA for American Chestnuts and some other odd ball natives.
https://www.gonativetrees.com/download/price-list/
Great suggestions and a great question. I agree.I hate spending $$$$$ on B&B trees in my area. Finding cheaper alternative nurseries is always a welcome to have.
Another option would be to go on Sheffields and start your desired trees from seed. They have just about everything you can imagine there.
I’m currently testing propagating from seed for which I just collected seeds last year. The first to work was larch, which sprouted in record time. I’m also running a batch of Rowan / mountain ash.
Ill trade you 100 blueberry cedars
