How We Grow Our Trees

 

People plant trees for a variety reason, but often they do so because they want to help improve the environment. As an extension of that, we grow our trees by starting with the goal of reducing, repurposing, and recycling as much material as we can throughout our processes.

  • Reduce.

    Water consumption used in watering our trees during the hot summer months is reduced by supplementing recpatured rainwater whenever possible.

  • Repurpose.

    Our container soil we use to grow our trees is made onsite by blending materials collected and composted from our property. This is mixed with supplemental pine bark fines to create a well-draining soil mixture.

  • Recycle.

    All our trees are grown in their own Root Pouch. These pouches are made from a 50/50 blend of recycled plastic water bottles and recycled natural fibers. This allows our trees to be planted in the ground in the root pouch they have been growing in.

Our packing process has been designed to allow us to ship our trees in considerably smaller packaging while providing a safer shipping environment for our trees. We can ship an average size tree with 50-65% less corrugate material than a typical nursery. Additionally, we repurpose our bamboo tree stakes used during the growing process to secure our trees in their shipping box.

 

All our trees are grown on our property in the natural elements. We do not use large commercial greenhouses. This adds some additional growing time on our end to achieve the desired size, but once you receive your tree it is fully prepared to transition to its new home.

 

Each tree is grown in its own Root Pouch. These pouches are a 50/50 blend of natural fibers and recycled plastic bottles. At time of shipping, we leave each tree in its Root Pouch and ship to our customers.

Our container soil is blended with goal of repurposing as much material from our farm as possible. Each container is a blend of composted leaves, recycled wood chips from fallen trees, and pine bark mulch. Each fall we collect this organic material and begin the composting process. It takes at least one year and up to 18 months before we can use this material, but we think it’s worth the wait.

Why We Use Root Pouches

  • As a young tree grows inside of a traditional plastic container, the hard plastic walls can cause what is known as root circling. As the roots expand, they begin to circle around the base of tree. If transplanted to the ground, the roots will not be able to self-correct and will continue to grow in a tight circle. This substantially weakens the tree as it grows and often will kill or significantly stress the new tree. The tree’s ability to survive droughts will also be significantly impaired due to the impaired root system.

  • Root pouches are designed to provide the best growing environment from start to finish for a young tree. The 50/50 blend of recycled plastic and natural fibers create a breathable mesh fabric container. This allows for excellent water drainage out of the container and acts to keep the tree cooler during hot summer months. Most importantly, as the roots expand, the Root Pouch naturally prunes the roots through entrapment. This creates an extremely dense and healthy root mass that once transplanted will help the tree transition to its new home.

So why doesn’t everyone use Root Pouches?

 

Well, the short answer is that Root Pouches are more time consumming to use with growing trees. Hard plastic containers offer a level of rigidity that makes potting, transporting, and packing easier on the nursery.

However, Root Pouches are better for environment and better for the young tree. We think these out weight the disadvantages and is worth the extra time we spend.

How We Select Your Tree

 

Each spring as our trees begin to leaf out, we categorize our trees by species, size, and quality. Trees that are showing to be in good health with vigorous spring growth emerging how made available for sale.

All trees that are ready sale and categorize the group sizing that we offer. We will typically offer trees in ranges of twelve inches (e.g. 24”-36”, 36”-48”). Every tree we ship will meet or exceed the minimum height the range our customers have selected. Additionally, we measure our tree from the top of the start of the trunk to the top branch. We never include the root mass in our sizing.

Some nurseries will sell their plants based on container sizing (e.g. Container #1, Container #2). Customers will purchase with the expectation that the larger size containers will provide a larger plant. However, there is no guarantee on the size you are getting. It is also possible that the plant has recently been up sized to the next larger container. This means the average retail price increase while tree heigh and root mass are not much larger than the smaller container size.

We want our customers to know exactly what they are purchasing and will receive. We guarantee our tree to be the size ordered or we will refund the cost of your order.