At -30, you might consider making them "indoor" hives in a garage or even in your home. You can take some tubing and run it fron the entrance of the hive to a hole made in an exterior wall or out a window and the bees will use that as usual. The bees will go through honey stores quicker being warm in the house, so a garage is probably the best compromise of not super cold but also not so warm as to keep the bees too active. Also, if they are in a shed right now with a normal entrance and it warms up too much they may try to fly and get lost in the indoors. In the absence of climate controlled hive wintering sheds like many pros have, they should always have easy access to outside so they can take cleansing flights whenever weather permits.

Otherwise, main things are to:
1. Keep the hives DRY. Keep the rain off and any drips that might be in the shed.
2. Wind break, but still room for "slow air" to move.
3. A lower and an upper entrance (both reduced, you can screen one if robbing is an issue as well) so air can flow through the hive.

I also use those 2" thick insulation boards, spray painted black to absorb sunlight, with an R value of 10. Moisture boards with chips are nice too if the chips are clean and sterile such as animal bedding (pine shavings). I also give sugar in the mountain camp method.

Hello all!

First off, these are not free. I'm selling them, but also open to trades and other barter.

I've grown out a couple hundred *pure* American Chestnut trees. These are not dunstans, not backcrossed hybrids, not GMO Americans. These are absolutely pure from a few secret sources of pure trees pollinated only by other pure trees. These have no blight resistance. They will only grow and persist west of the Rockies as we are free of the blight.

Anyways - I have had far higher germination than I expected, and far higher survival past that as well. This has left me with too many of these awesome, endangered, rare trees for me to care for on my own property.

In lieu of planting them in our woods and hoping 5-10% survive, I would rather they go out into the Permie world in groups of 3 or more to be well cared for and serve to provide genetic stock for future generations.

Especially now, with the new hybrids and GMO chestnuts being released, as well as extensive development here in the Northwest where many of the only blight-free pure American chestnuts remain, completely pure American chestnuts are going to get harder and harder to find. I would like to increase their numbers while it's still an option.

So, if you have a good place to put 3 or more, please send me a message or reply to this post and I will message you. Please plant them somewhere they are likely to persist for at least a few decades so they can produce plenty of nuts and seedlings before they are cut down by development. On that note, pure American nuts sell for as much as $1 apiece, so you could consider it a financial investment as well. I'm asking $50 for a bundle of 3 healthy trees. There will be price breaks if you buy more. Again, open to trades and barter as well.

If you have questions about their requirements or site preferences, spacing, etc, please post in the questions and I will reply for everyone to see.

I also have (way too many) other species for sale, including 15 pine nut species, 5 walnut species, ginkgo, yellowhorn, siberian pea shrub, douglas fir,  european chestnut trees, comfrey, currants, jostaberries, gooseberries, coffee, horseradish, cornelian cherry, apples, pears, jujubee, milkweed, among others. Please feel free to message me if you're interested in any of those as well.

Try your hand at grafting the honeycrisp on to the two suckers - then choose the best one if both take and remove the others. That graft doesn't look super happy.

Get as much free wood chip mulch as you can out there -  it will start breaking down and the worms will incorporate it into the soil. Save your back. Mound the existing soil, compost, and wood chips in even thirds about 2 feet high and plant into that - it will settle by at least 6 inches or a foot. Keep it watered in droughty times. I also highly recommend planting bocking 14 comfrey everywhere. It will develop a very deep taproot that will help break up your soil for drainage and make nutrients availiable to your plantings.

I have heavy clay soil that is saturated 9 months of the year and I hit standing water 18 inches down. A foot thick layer of woodchips and compost and comfrey everywhere I don't have a plant has my fruit trees and berry bushes thriving.

Best of luck to you!

P.s.those hardy kiwis always have a slow start - they'll get going fast the 3rd year.

I recommend contacting Nielsen Bros. We were looking into logging our property and decided to wait and let the trees grow a bit more but they were very straightforward with us giving honest opinions and produced a general profits and costs estimation for us.

Looks like a species of Ash to me!

That would be a London Plane tree Jay.

Chestnuts are notoriously picky about grafting - if the scions you've ordered aren't of Chinese ancestry, they are very unlikely to take.

Rule of thumb is that a european cultivar will graft to a european seedling with about a 2/3rds success rate (for professionals at least) in industry they typically even graft the cultivar on a seedling of that specific cultivar to maximize success rates.

Same goes for chinese if you use both chinese, or japanese etc.

If that cultivar fails on that tree, try another (same species) cultivar and you'll probably get another 2/3rds successful grafts. Then repeat until all your trees are eventually grafted.

As far as I know, the lines blur a bit with hybrids, but I would want at least one to match. For instance a euroXjapanese would probably work on a euro seedling, but a chinese probably wouldn't.

If some of your scions aren't at least partially Chinese, it may not be worth it to try to graft them onto it. But it may work who knows! If I were you I would look for some euro seedlings for those scions if you have any.

As far as timing, what I've seen is people leave the scions in the fridge until mid spring, after the tree has leafed out, and then graft with the dorman scion on the growing seedling. But I don't know if this is more or less successful than grafting while dormant. Probably is a delicate balance between keeping the scions fresh and grafting at the correct time.

As far as pruning that multi-stemmed tree, I would try to graft it with a different variety each stem, and then in two years when you're pretty sure the graft has taken, cut out all but one of the stems which the graft fails on. Then you'll get perhaps 3 or 4 known cultivars on one tree, plus you get to see what the quality of your seedling is! The tree is likely to be healthier in the long term if it has fewer stems rather than a whole lot. Doesn't mean it has to be one stem though!

Good luck!

Never tried it myself, but my mom always told me she had a tree that she used christmas lights on! Not the newer LED ones - but the old ones that would get warm/hot. String them up over the whole tree, and if the tree blooms and is in risk of late frost turn the lights on and leave them on until the danger passes. This warms the tree's vicinity a few degrees and can potentially save the blossoms and future fruit.

Here are some photos of my seedlings!

Hi Nicole!

Hope you're well!

I never did end up finding out which cultivars to get - all of the info I could find was primarily about the nut characteristics - nothing about shade tolerance of specific cultivars or anything to that effect.

I did, however, rule out Chinese due to their necessity of high heat to ripen nuts. I'm planning to stick with European and European x Japanese Hybrids.

I would have simply gotten them all, in that case, but chestnuts are notorious for their grafts failing after a few years and a once healthy, happy young tree dying back and reverting to it's rootstock.

However, I DID find a solution that works for me - I was luck enough to find a local chestnut orchard with lots of mature European chestnut cultivars, so I bought about 30 lbs of nuts a couple of months back and I am germinating my own to use as root stock!

My plan is to then order scions from Burnt Ridge nursery in about two years and try my hand at grafting them myself.

For grafting chestnuts, Washington Chestnut Company has a great amount of info, which basically culminates to if you try to graft a cultivar from the one species (casteana sativa in this case) on to the same species of root stock, if your first fails then try another cultivar, and if that one fails try yet another cultivar, you will probably be successful by the third try. Since I'm in no rush, I can plant out the orchard and just keep trying to graft them until I'm successful and have the cultivars I want.

One thing I read which I now have discovered to be untrue is that "chestnuts have an extremely low germination rate."

Just like black walnuts, apparently :p

Well, so far at least half of my nuts have germinated, which means I will soon have A LOT of extra chestnut seedlings to deal with, since I will only need +-40 trees for the orchard area.

However, in doing further research, I discovered that chestnuts are also extremely useful trees for wood production in the form of coppice.

In Europe, chestnuts are trypically grown on north facing slopes (and oaks are grown on the south) and they can be cut roughly every 10 years for firewood, 20 years for fencing or every 50 years for timber. They then re sprout vigorously from the cut stump. There are individual European chestnut trees (called stools) that are thousands of years old after being repeatedly coppiced for many generations in this way, ever since the Romans brought chestnuts to Great Britain. They sprout very similarly to our native Bigleaf Maple that I'm sure you're familiar with.

So I plan to use these extra seedlings on part of my steep slope in order to make some good use out of the otherwise unusable site that is currently just alder scrub. They may fruit a bit but not much, but the deer will certainly appreciate anything that comes down!

Chestnuts also produce almost all heartwood very quickly, which is extremely rot resistant and can be used for long-term fencing without any further treatment! I encourage you to search for the UK government's information on Chestnut coppices, it was very informative!

Oh! One final very important thing I also learned - there is a general rule of thumb among chestnut orchardists. All site characteristics equal, any chestnut tree (including seedling trees!) will produce roughly the same amount of nuts by weight. The reason we have cultivars is primarily to ensure that that weight consists of fewer, larger nuts, because that is what has become desireable for the consumers (and it's easier for harvesting and processing.) However, if selling them is not a concern and you want the trees for their calories, a few seedling trees are just as able to serve your needs. (people also say that the samller nuts tend to be sweeter) I plan to run pigs through my orchard to clean up the leftover nuts some day, and I doubt those consumers will be too picky about the size of the nuts, and neither will the deer!

Good luck on choosing your chestnuts!

Most of my soft fruit trees are these multi grafted type due to limited space - they are cool! I have two with apples, 1 plum, asian pear, cherry, and euro pear.

However, after a few years of having my own planted and observing my friend's with hundreds in a nursery for sale, I've noticed a few things about the ones I've been around:

1. Unless you prune them back HARD each year or two, They usually end up with only two or three of the cultivars dominating, with the others either dying off or persisting as small, insignificant branches. Seems to be random which do well, not necessarily a specific cultivar being more or less vigorous than another. Perhaps it has to do with the quality of the graft or it's location along the stem - more auxin going into one branch than the others focusing the growth there.

2. The interstem (the piece grafted to the rootstock that the scions are then grafted to, if there is one) and/ or the root stock - OFTEN sprouts - I'd be about 90% sure that unlabeled branch is one. If I were you I would either remove it or ASAP graft the least healthy looking cultivar (or your favorite, or another cultivar) if you let it grow and it turns out to be the interstem or root stock, most of the growth will occur in it (perhaps due to it not being inhibited by a poor graft). This ended, for my friend with one planted in the ground for a few years at his nursery, in us having to remove a 4 inch diameter stem (which was roughly half the tree) while the actual grafted cultivars were maybe an inch in diameter. Now it is a huge gaping wound and may be the eventual cause of death of the tree.

3. They are less vigorous and generally a pain. I have mine as a temporary way to "store" the genetic info of those cultivars in order to later graft individual trees on a larger plot of land. In retrospect, for sake of ease of pruning (I must often break almost every pruning rule I know with these trees) and general lack of headache, I would get individual trees on dwarf or super dwarf root stock if space is an issue. Or typical root stock and just prune hard, it's good biomass generation but more cutting. However it's simpler pruning since you're not trying to figure out how to give each cultivar what it needs - it's like trying to prune 5 trees that are all in each other's way all the time.

They are still cool though! A much easier edition of this concept, in my opinion, is espalier combo trees with at least a vertical foot between each graft , since each branch/cultivar gets their own space no matter what.

Good luck!

Being where you are, I would encourage you to look into walnuts and chestnuts! Both should do well where you are and provide an abundance of food with little maintenance necessary.
Good luck!!

Perhaps some evergreen trees? There are many sterile hybrids that grow very tall very quickly such as Leyland Cypress that won't rain down seedlings if you'd prefer a hedge that won't. They also are extremely forgiving of pruning and hedge to basically whatever heigh you want. We have a hedgerow of them planted that has never been topped and it is impenetrable and about 40 feet tall after 15 years. The trees are about 5 feet apart - they would fill a gap twice that wide quickly as well. Every now and again we cut off side branches and chip them for some nice mulch. They sprout right back and fill any space we create.

Or, if you're more patient, a native conifer would probably work too! If you're interested in getting food or forage for your animals off of these as well, try planting hardy kiwis, grapes, or passionfruit at the base of what you plant. They'll climb right up!

Cut down two of them and chipped them last year, they worked great. I don't think you'll have any issues.

Well, i have another consideration!

I recently found a source of seed chestnuts from only about 15 minutes away from my site, who grows a wide variety of cultivars. I could grow each individual tree for less than a dollar myself, versus 20 dollars plus per tree.

My main concern is genetic diversity, and this seed source would allow me that at a much lower cost. However, i don't and won't know the quality of the seedlings until about 15 years down the road. I also don't know which cultivar each chestnut is from, nor which pollinated it.

I could potentially get scionwood and graft cultivars that i want onto these seedlings that i grow myself, but there are low success rates for chestnuts and after all the trouble it may not be worth it in the end.

I can also essentially get an unlimited supply of seedlings from my own mature cultivar trees in abut 5 years, rather than needing to wait and see what the quality is like and potentially cut down a tree i cared for over 15 years.

Any opinions? It looks like perhaps $450 to get 20 4 ft tall grafted cultivar trees, or $50 for a couple hundred seedlings i grow my own that would probably get a foot tall after a year.

Deer browse is also a consideration, the taller trees may mean 2 or 3 years less of fencing necessary around the trees.

Thanks all!

Hello!

I'm looking to buy bamboo rhizomes or plants of the cold-hardy timber variety, "Phyllostachys vivax" or one similar! Runners or clumpers are okay, needs to make canes at least 4" and get large.

PM me if you have some, I'm happy to barter or pay, drive to pick up, and dig out my own!

Thanks all :)

Not sure what trees would particularly do well, but i would plant some comfrey to help access the minerals in the soil, as well as break up the shale a bit, and make them available to whatever you end up planting. It may make a difference and allow you to plant something that would do poorly or not well otherwise. Then your main planting doesn't necessarily need to have a deep tap root.

I would also include a perrenial nitrogen fixer as well either as your main planting or alternating with it, if your soil is poor!

Not a vegetable, but we have what we believe is a unique cultivar of european plum that was brought over from the Czech republic in the 1800's by my great great great (great?) (.... Great...?) grandparents. Its purple, much like an italian prune, but larger, juicier, and well suited to eating straight off of the tree, though we have made prunes, preserves, and alcohol from them before. It's got golden flesh with a clingstone pit.

The old family story goes that they grew plums back on the farm in the Czech republic, and when they emigrated to the States a sucker of it was stuffed into a suitcase with some wet newspaper for the trip over, and covered up with clothes so it wouldn't be taken or destroyed by customs.

It then was planted in the tiny logging settlement in upstate Maine that they originally settled in, and since has traveled all over the continent by way of more suitcases from Maine to Labrador to California to Washington as the family has moved.

The tree suckers pretty reliably, sending up fast growing shoots both at the base and up to 10 or 15 feet away. We simply let the sucker grow for a couple of seasons, and then pop it out with a shovel for propagation. These are planted around and given to family/friends. Pruned branches stuck into the ground root pretty reliably as well.

At our home site, we have about 2 dozen of them or so, all propagated via suckers or cuttings, growing in ranges from dense shade to full sun. Over time we've found it to fruit moderately on it's own, with some years it being absolutely prolific, but purchased another european plum variety last year as a pollinator and saw our yields about quintuple.

The family name of the Czech ancestors that brought it over was Dostal, so that's what we call it.

Dostal as a family name means "trustworthy, reliable, and keeping to one's word" so it turns out to be a damn good marketing name, if we ever did get around to getting it recognized as a known cultivar!

When I get a chance I'll edit this post to include some pictures of the trees :)

That's the closest i could get as well! It seems to maybe be a japanese beech, fagus crenata, but the underside and edge of the leaves of this specimen are covered in a downy white fuzz, and the undersides are smooth - the leave veins aren't super pronounced as in beech. But that may still be it!

Howdy folks!

I am in the process of setting up a food forest, and i am hoping to include as much variety as possible. I hope to eventually include any and all nut trees, fruit trees, and berries that can do well here!

As it can be very expensive, as we all know, to purchase plants, I figured that perhaps exchanging cultivars and varieties in the form of cuttings and or scions may help those of us with limited gardening funds get a chance to try out varieties that we may otherwise have to pass over.

I personally already have a pretty extensive collection that i would be happy to provide material from in exchange for other material!

I figured people could post what they have, as well as what they are looking for, and then personal messages could take care of the rest!

I can provide a wide assortment of:

Asian pears, apples, pears, plums, prunes, currants, quince, cherries, gooseberries, autumn olive, jujubee, cornelian cherry, aronia, paw paw, walnuts, chestnut seedlings, and a lot more, just pm me and ask if you're looking for something specific! I can give most of these as either rooted cuttings/plants or as scion wood.

I also have seedlings of native trees and shrubs such as sitka spruce, red cedar, doug fir, western hemlock, sword fern, red huckleberry, and more that i can sig up if desired.

I also have a TON of black walnut saplings!

Oh, and all the bocking 14 comfrey you could ever want!

I'm looking for:

Nuts:
English walnut varieties
Heartnuts
Buartnuts
Butternuts
European chestnuts
European x japanese hybrid chestnuts
Japanese/korean chestnuts
American chestnuts

Hazelnuts/filberts (orchard varieties, not native or ornamentals)

Fruit:

Medlar
Figs
Mayhaw
Paw paws
All the classics interest me as well (apples, plums, etc)
Berries
Vines

All kinds of things, really! Let me know what you have!

I can also provide experienced pruning services in exchange for cuttings!

Thanks! Hopefully this can be useful to people!

Howdy folks!

I'm having trouble identifying a pair of beautiful, small trees i found growing in dense shade on our property in the foothills of western washington. They are probably about 15-25 feet tall, windy stemmed with white patches on the bark, with hairy leaves. See pics attached for more detail. The soil is wet and rich, and there are large alders growing nearby.

Thanks, if anyone can help find it!

I BELIEVE it's a native, but it's remotely possible they were planted and are non native...

I haven't noticed them anywhere else on the property.

Hello again permies!

A quick update on the current status of the property:

The clearing went swimmingly! Using machinery got us through what felt like a few seasons worth of work in no time at all!

We've re-opened all of the roads, mowed down the blackberries out of what were the past clearings, and cleared the property line to a point that it can be planted out, and perhaps a (symbolic) fence or at least a line of trees put in. Nothing that would prevent animal passage, like a deer, from going over, but perhaps something to simply demarcate what's ours and provide a nice(ish) looking border as we enter the property. We also plan to put up a nice old beat up gate on our road that could be knocked down by a sneeze, but is again symbolic.

Almost all of the downed alders and blackberries are piled up to start their  decomposition process, and will hopefully be thoroughly on their way to soil by the time i plant.

A quick question along those lines - how would you folks go about putting out alder logs to decompose in an orchard? We have a chipper and will be chipping the smaller trees and branches entirely, but the logs can be up to 6 inches or so in diameter and are too much for the chipper. I was thinking of lining the rows out with the logs, but don't want them to get in the way of mowing for the few years they may take to decompose. So i was thinking of possibly piling them up, firewood style-ish, halfway between each tree and letting them go there, and spreading the rotted wood once it's far gone enough to be a non- issue for the mower or brush hog. Any other ideas?

Additionally, as you can see in the attached photos, i have now been presented with something i wasn't expecting to reach quite yet in the process- bare soil!! My father got a little excited with the machinery, and decided to scrape the topmost layer off of everything and add it to the log/branch pile, which is alright, but i now need to cover crop it since we're entering the rainy season and i don't want the soil to all wash down the mountain. SO i went ahead and ordered a big 50lb sack of dutch white clover from outsidepride (they had the best price AND got it to me the very next day for the cheapest shipping option $15!)

For my current purposes, 50lbs is WAY over-kill, as we have probably only cleared about an acre or so, but it should store well, and we plan on continuing to clear, so it can be used as we continue next season as well.

I chose clover because of the nitrogen fixation, mowability, bee forage, beauty, and ability to basically care for itself. It also is apparently less of an issue for trees in an orchard setting when compared to grass. It should even help attract the deer over, which is good, at least until i plant! Haha!

I think after running up there to do some last minute poking around and seed the clover in, we will be basically done for the season as far as larger projects go. Which means more thinking and planning for me!

My biggest thought right now is this: if you look at the map from my previous post, there is a clearing just north of the main road about halfway through the property, with a slope just a little further north of that. We expanded that clearing by cleaning out the dead and dying doug firs from the planting just east of that, and it is now one of the biggest, sunniest clearings on the property! :)

However, now that i have it, i am unsure how to use it, As i think that even as we clear more it will remain the sunniest spot!

I do not intend to grow veggies or annuals up there, so don't feel a need to save it for that kind of purpose.

Right now my main objective is to get the nut trees in, as they take so long to bear, so i think either chestnuts or hazelnuts will go in this clearing.

My decision is to:

1. Put the chestnuts there on the flat, and find somewhere else on the property (maybe just across the road to the south?) for the hazels.
(the issue i have with this is the slope to the north may then become too shady to use for much) but i do love the idea of a nice, flat, organized, easy to maintain chestnut orchard.

Or

2. Put the chestnuts on the slope to the north of this clearing, in either a single line or a staggered double line, and perhaps build them a retaining wall in the future, and hope that they are able to survive to grow the 30+ feet up above the edge of the bank to get better sun over time, and put the hazels on the flat.

Or

3. Put chestnuts on slope, AND hazels somewhere else, and leave this best area open for now as a future site.

I don't know! But i also don't have to decide for at least another year - i do like the idea of mixing and doing a "sun scoop" style planting, but i think i want more traditional orchards for the chestnut and hazelnut trees, at least.

P.S. the walnuts will definitely survive part shade until getting larger, so they are going north of the secondary road in bits and pieces wherever i find or can make a good gap for them! That way they also never shade anyone out.

Hi folks!

I'm planning to plant a chestnut orchard, but I am having trouble choosing the cultivars to plant. I plan to order from Burntridge or Washington Chestnut Co., or a combination of the two. Trees are 20-28$ each for grafted.

I'm planning to stick to grafted european and euro/japanese hybrids, no seedlings.

I don't want to plant chinese or any hybrid chinese that produce pollen, My area doesn't have the blight, and has cool summers and sub-optimal sun so chinese are unlikely to produce much.

I am planning to plant american and hybrid american chestnuts in another location - this area is just for nut production and having a wide variety of cultivars.

A little info about my site - I'm on a shelf that juts out of a north-facing slope in western Wa, with gravelly clay-loam that drains well. I have the option to put in irrigiation and add good soil to the site at planting and over time. The main issue is sun - basically none in the winter, some in fall and spring, and perhaps 6 hours in summer.

I am not looking for industrial nut production - a moderate amount would make me happy, and i would like the trees to grow well and be able to take cuttings. A reliable producer for a cool, short season would perhaps be better than a variety that can produce high volumes but only in a fertile, sunny floodplain.

Additionally, i am trying to decide on planting location. I have a flat patch that gets the best sun, and directly north of that a 30 degree north facing slope that drops about 30 feet.

I would plant the chestnuts on the flat, but as they get large they will then eventually shade the slope and make it unusable for anything that is not shade - tolerant.

I figured on the slope, the chestnuts would eventually "reach up" over the edge by growing upwards, since they will eventually be 60 feet plus, and get the light that way for nut production.

If i do this i may plant Hazelnuts south of them on the flat piece of land since they are short and wouldn't create too much issue shading what's behind them.

Do you think the chestnuts would survive and grow well enough to reach up over the edge? Would they be likely to produce at that point? Or should i sacrifice the slope, find somewhere else for hazelnuts, and plant the chestnuts up on the flat to begin with?

Below are the varieties I'm considering at the moment, if anyone has any experience with these, good or bad, please let me know. I'm trying to narrow my choice down to perhaps 10 or so due to cost. If you see a variety not on the list that you would or would not recommend, please let me know as well!

Belle Epine
Bisalta #2
Bisalta #3
Bracalla
Colossal
Connecticut Early
Maraval
Marron Comballe
Marron Di Chuisa Pesio
Marron Di Val Di Susa
Marron Du Var
Nevada
Okei
Precoce Migoule
Primato
Prolific
Silverleaf (Eurobella)
Skioka
Tanzawa
Tsukuba
Wren
Gillet
Marsol
ReginA Montis
RegiS Montis
Bouche De Betizac
Bergantz

Thanks, everyone!

Here are some additional pictures on the property:

Soil!

The soil north of the road isn't quite as bad as I thought! At least not in one clearing where I dug a foot deep pit. Surprisingly enough, I believe it's a sandy, gravely, clay-loam, as opposed to the pretty much pure clay and/or gravel I expected. I'll post a picture and people can give me their diagnosis as well! It drains much better than I expected which is important for chestnuts especially, and I think I will be OK over time as I add organic matter in prodigal amounts in the form of leaves, alder wood, branches, and soil dug from the more fertile (but shady) parts of the property.

I will take more soil samples around the area, as well as a sample of the beautiful soil south by the slope, and post more pictures after our next trip

I have also decided to plan to plant next fall (2018) at the earliest, perhaps even spring 2019, as this will give me more time to get the areas REALLY up to snuff with all the soil moving I need to do, as well as pot up the bare-root trees I will be getting and give them a nice cushy year of life in some potting soil and compost to give them the very best shot once they actually go up to the site - I would be devastated to lose many of these trees after spending so much on them.

Howdy Folks!

So we got up there last Monday, and spent that time starting to clear brush and small alders with chainsaws, as well as weed-whacking the main road open. We're planning to get up there again tomorrow, for about 3 days this time, and will be bringing our tractor and brush-hog which will certainly make things go more quickly on the blackberry clearing side of things...

I also spent time walking the property doing some surveying with the help of a great aerial map from 2009 I found on the county website. This one is gold because it appears to have been taken at or around noon in the summer, so shadows are minimal and it's MUCH easier to see the individual canopies, clearings, and other features.

I then used this map and the measuring tool on the county's Imap to start piecing together a map that should be PRETTY accurate with relative locations of trees, canopies, the roads, etc. I would say most stuff is within 20 or so feet of actual location, and 5 or 10 feet of actual size. I also took a variety of pictures to give an idea of the state of the site. I'll be posting those and the map below. So far the map is about +-65 percent complete. I still have a lot of work to do on the lower shelf, once the secondary road goes in, as well as in the north-westernmost corner of the property, which is currently pretty much a mystery. It LOOKS like it's mostly brushy trees, and could be a good candidate for clearing. We'd always left it alone as a buffer with the neighbor's property, but I plan to plant a proper, thick hedgerow along the western property line which will allow for clearing up much closer to the line.

I also did a little soil sampling - see the next post for pictures and description!

On the Map:

The dots surrounded by dashed lines are large trees that I could distinguish from the satellite photo. The dot is the stem, the dashed line is the extent of the canopy. There are a lot more of these to add, but this shows the majority of the large and important ones.

Slanted lines are slope, the top and bottom slopes are too steep to do anything with, the middle slope between the two shelves is potentially usable. The drop between the shelves is approximately 20-40 feet, it varies.

This map shows only the northernmost flat 5 acres. The lot also extends to the south another 15 acres of steep, north-facing slope.

"Dense" means dense with trees and brush, IE Large Alders and dotted with large maples, and filled in with blackberries. "Brush" means mostly clear of trees except a few scrubby alders, and mostly consisting of blackberries and/or salmonberries.

The two blocks about halfway horizontally through the property with the fir tree symbols on them, on either side of the road, are nursery beds that never got planted. They are densely packed with dead douglas firs, noble firs, and grand firs. The ones along the edges grew fine, but the ones in the center that are dead or nearly dead will probably be cleared out. The southern block also has an old growth redcedar that will be kept, and a very large alder as well. The X to the west of that block represents our well access.

The scalloped rectangles to the southeast are two trailers, and there is a shipping container under three large trees over there slightly further east as well.

The filled-in blobs are ponds.

The thick black line at the south-east corner is the waterfall. Picture posted! (this is the end of our drought, as well, so it can run MUCH higher than that.

There is an old logging road that runs along the south edge of the map, which could potentially be cleared.

Hello and thank you both for the replies!

Kyle - hello! First I'll respond and say that my goals are mixed, but all boil down to desiring enjoyment from the place without having to spend too much money on it. I personally love pruning, orchard care and the like, and am happy to put that kind of maintenance in myself without the time it takes being an issue - i really don't mind spending long hours with the trees at all :)
I don't view it as anything commercial - though i do intend to propagate for personal expansion, gifts to family/friends, etc. I also enjoy propagation quite a bit!

I think, to summarize, my goal is to have a diverse, organized, healthy set of orchards and berry plantings that i can pick fruit and nuts from, but also leave much to the wildlife. I would like it to fit into the existing landscape as much as possible without having to take down too much - at least for now, and have room to expand in the future.

I will definitely try the sunlight app, that's a fantastic idea!

I also think keeping it near infastructure is smart, good point. I will definitely take proximity to the main road into account.

Now to Nicole - hello! I have read threads about your lot before, when researching my own! Cool to have someone with such a similar situation!

To answer your questions - in the forseeable future, we don't intend on living up there full time. There are no permanent structures currently (which helps make the tax rate IMMENSELY more affordable) though we do have a shipping container and a derelict mobile home that we used to use and at this point is 90% of it's way to being too far gone to salvage. (there's also another one that's already been crunched up and has become one with the blackberries, haha.

However! There is plenty of buildable, non- wetland, and if we wanted to, someday we could build in a house and all the comforts of home. For now though, we plan to keep it the current situation and get the land itself up to snuff. It's probably smart to consider the best spot for an eventual home site and leave that open, as well as putting the orchard(s) near where a home would probably eventually go! Thank you for that, i wasn't considering that before!

Thank you also for the photos, i plan to head up to the property tomorrow and will take some pictures to post, as well as drawing some maps once i can include a very general location of the largest trees and stands. It looks like your hill is about a 20 - 35 or 40 degree slope ish from the pictures, is that about right?

Man - what i would give for that! Hahaha! Our slope runs about 45 - 50 degrees plus basically the whole way up the mountain - and it is very densely populated with maples that do indeed block what seems like ALL of the winter sun - like you mentioned you can get a little of without the trees on your hill. I'll take a picture showing the steepness tomorrow :)

I wouldn't consider cutting down the trees - though i do plan to, slowly over time, prune the maples and where convenient gaps form put in a variety of useful timber and food trees and shrubs as I create propagules to use. That is secondary to getting the flat 5 acres cleaned up and planted, though. I do have a few hundred black walnut seedlings that i sprouted and need to find homes for, and intend to shotgun spread them up on the hillside this fall and spring where ever i find a reasonable gap (or can easily create one) and just let them go wild.

As an aside - must say - i don't intend to test the germination rate of black walnuts ever, ever again. I started with a couple of thousand or so that i bought off of craigslist (about 6 five gallon buckets full with no husks) and expected perhaps a 10 or 15 percent germination rate (the nuts had at this point been dried for consumption already and i had low hopes) but after about a month or two of soaking them had at least half of them sprout over the course of a month or two! I at that point gave up potting them and gave the remaining 3 buckets full to the local douglas fir squirrels, who planted at least a dozen in my own yard and i imagine planted many more in the local blackberry fields/woods across the street!

Anyways, i plan to post maps and pictures within the next 48 hours, hopefully that will help with giving a better idea of the situation!

Thank you again, everyone! :)

Hey everyone!

Have long been a reader, not a poster, but finally getting started on a big project that has been in the planning phase for the last decade or so, now that home base projects are (more or less...) wrapping up.

First, some background - we have long owned a plot of land in northern Wa, West of the Cascades but solidly in the foothills rather than the lowlands. It's a secondary forest pretty typical of western Wa, that was probably logged in the early 1900's and never replanted. It is sparsely treed by Western Wa standards, consisting mostly of VERY big bigleaf maples, and moderately sized Western Redcedar, Western Hemlock, and Sitka Spruce. There are a few beautiful, large, mature Red Alders as well, but only a handful. My father bought the land decades ago and did a little selective logging, taking out some of the largest/straightest big leaf maples, but leaving the majority (mostly due to their low value due to multiple stems to be honest). He also put in roads that I will detail on a map soon, and he created several clearings between the large trees. After this, we let it sit for about a decade, and now basically everything in the clearings has reverted to brush and blackberries, with healthy alders growing in the wet areas and unhealthy alders growing in the drier areas.

It's beautiful, isolated, peaceful, has year-round water coming down in a main waterfall and multiple other smaller streams, has roads roughed in, very good access, electricity, a well, etc. We're really extremely lucky to have it and it's a prime location for permaculture except for a few factors:

1. The site is north facing. VERY North facing. In the winter it feels as though it gets essentially no sun at all, and summer some spots feel like they have +- 6 hours or so maximum.

2. It's on the side of a mountain. (the north side...) It's a 20 acre parcel, with 5 of that consisting of a 2-level shelf at the northernmost 1/4 of the rectangular property, and the remaining south 15 acres consisting of extremely steep slope that doesn't quit for at least a few miles. All the water runs down this until it hits the shelf, and then turns one direction or the other, going perpendicular to the slope, off of our property, without doing much to water the flat areas of the shelf that aren't close to the beginning of the slope. (Our property line ends just after the edge of the shelf, where it then drops again even more steeply down to a major river and floodplain.)

3. The soil is gravely, poor, thin, and generally not good. There are a few areas that have fine soil, IE the waterlogged swampy areas near the water sources, but other than that it's basically a big rock shelf with a little layer of soil on top of gravel, rocks, and clay.

So, that provides a starting picture of the property. I'll provide some drawings soon to make it even clearer.

Anyways, I have big dreams and plans for it. I have a lot of experience in Permaculture, know my plants relatively well, and just finished up most of my projects on our 1 acre home site down in the burbs.

Now, moving on to this larger site, I was hoping for some guidance. I have a few short term goals, but in general the long-term plan for the property will depend on the results of some of these initial projects.

I'll try to go in sequential order:

Primary Near-Term (Before End of Summer) Projects:

1. Thin the existing young saplings and trees to a healthy density to promote the increased survival and better growth of those that remain. This primarily applies to the alders everywhere (Alder is actually worth a little $$ nowadays if you give it time!) but also applies to the Redcedars that are popping up periodically as well as 3 small nursery blocks of Douglas Fir, Grand Fir, and Noble Fir that were planned to be dispersed but never got spread out and are now far too dense.

2. Clear out the secondary roadway. The roads consist of a main road traversing roughly the middle of the shelf from one end to the other, as well as a secondary loop that comes off of this one up to the north, going down to the smaller secondary shelf, traversing it, and then coming back upwards to connect to the main road again. The main road is still clear and in good shape, the secondary road needs some clearing of saplings and blackberries.

3. Clear out the current, still existing clearings/meadows. There are 3 sites that are still relatively clear, and will be the easiest to get mowed and back into open space. At the request of my father, these areas will, at least for the time being, stay open to preserve a view and allow for the restoration of a pond in the near future.

4. Find locations for new clearings that can be used for plantings. Here we get into the meat of the issue, and where I need the most advice.

I have two conflicting courses of action, and am having difficulty deciding between the two. The clearings, for the most part, would be relatively small (perhaps 10,000-20,000 square feet at the largest) between the existing mature maples, cedars, and other trees. (I would be willing to take out a big tree or two if it meant a world of difference, but for the most part want to leave the large mature trees and just do high branch pruning on them to allow as much light in as possible while preserving them) Additionally, the way the site is, I can either go on the south side of the road, closer to the slope, where there is higher-quality soil and plenty (sometimes too much) water, but it gets significantly less light the closer to the slope you get. Alternatively, I can push towards the north side of the road, further from the slope, where there is very poor soil, little water (I could easily install irrigation systems in the future) and much, much more sun exposure. The current tree density on either side is basically the same.

My goal for the next 6-10 months is to get my three main nut groups in as much as I possibly can, namely being walnuts/butternuts/heartnuts/buartnuts/hickories/maybe northern seedling pecans (I know hickories and pecans are crazy for western WA but figured what the hell, seedlings of them are VERY cheap), chestnuts, and hazelnuts/filberts. My goal would be to plant 1 of each variety that I can get my hands on/afford. Grafted and clonally propagated for now to ensure good genetics. I love the idea of seedlings and selecting for local adaptations, but I can always do that with my own using the offspring of the cultivars that I put in (The genetic diversity is part of why I want at least one of each variety) The other part of why I want one of each variety is that it allows me to propagate my own of these well-studied and understood varieties.

Option A: Make small clearings as we go in opportune places and get the trees in wherever makes sense in the moment, not necessarily attempting to adhere to rows or being all that organized. I do plan to triple label the trees and create a detailed map with the variety and its location. This may be more conducive to planting in a permaculture/mixed fashion later on due to the varying gaps and micro-environments it will create, but messier and harder to evaluate a variety due to confounding factors.

Option B: Create larger, block clearings suitable for traditional nut-orchard style row-planting. This is fairly straightforward and well understood. These would be approximately 30 trees for the chestnuts (each a different variety), approximately 20 for the walnut+others group (each a different variety), and approximately 20-40 for the hazelnut/filbert group (possibly a few doubles in this one) Obviously this is more work in the beginning, but may potentially save headache later as it is more organized and will be easier to maintain. However, these blocks will not be suitable for significant planting later on with other species. Essentially I imagine that these would function as my propagation home bases, allowing me a neat and organized are to propagate varieties and seedlings to then plant in a more permaculture-type fashion elsewhere on the property and other places.

Option C: When clearing the roads, simply clear them out an extra 30 feet on either side and plant rows of the plants along the sides. This would look cool, but could also be accomplished later. It's also not great for pollination, but better organized than option A and less work potentially than option B.


So what do you folks think about
1. the side of the road to focus on first for each of these three groups? I can easily do them in different places on the property.
2. Option A vs B vs C vs any other ideas??
3. Any varieties of any of these groups that you folks think I absolutely MUST have or that are absolutely not worth the $$?
I've found that walnuts will run about 30-40 for grafted trees, 10 ish for seedlings, chestnuts run about 15-30 for grafts, and hazels I can find for anywhere from 10 - 30 on average.



Notes: Keep in mind that Walnuts must be planted relatively far away from the other species and cannot be co-planted with chestnuts or hazelnuts/filberts. I also thought about Co-planting with alternating hazelnuts/filberts and chestnuts, but since they are wind pollinated and the hazels will be much more productive with full sun, I think I would prefer to keep them separate.

I also plan to repeat this process in the future as I go with other varieties of edibles such as plums pears apples paw paws berries etc.

Thanks for reading, everyone! I'll post maps and lists of cultivars soon. Any and all advice is graciously accepted!