re: Planting Trees at Camp - Help

If you're looking at specific species of trees, Mossy Oak has their own nursery in Starkville, MS. Plus, they ship them to your door. They have a variety of different tree types. They use a special technique called "air pruning," which means they plant the seeds and let them sprout in a special container that causes the roots to grow in a more spread out, fibrous way. Basically, instead of a couple tap roots, there's hundreds of tiny fiber roots, which means the tree can pick up more nutrients and water from the soil. Some of mine have grown from 12-14" to 6-8' feet tall by the year after I planted them. They are a bit more expensive, ($3 a tree, for a 6-18" one year old seedling), but in my experience, we haven't lost any to drought or natural conditions YET. I've planted about 100 of them in different varieties on my property over the past couple of years. Good stuff if you're willing to pay a little more for a healthier tree.

If you're looking for tree species recommendations, I like to mix varieties of oaks: Nuttall, white, southern red, shumard, swamp chesnut, water, and cherrybark oak are some good ones. It all depends on your site conditions. Honeylocust is an excellent wildlife tree to consider as well. For fruit trees, you want wild varieties rather than domestic varieties (they are hardier and do not need pesticides). There are plenty of different wild species of apples, crabapples, and pears, but honestly, its hard to go wrong with a bunch of persimmon trees. Everything eats persimmons like crazy.

I think that Mossy Oak also sells bareroot seedlings in bulk, like 100 for $100 I think. These aren't air pruned or container grown, they are grown in the ground and then dug out when you buy them. 100 trees for $100 is a pretty good deal, but you can only get one species. www.nativnurseries.com

We've gotten some bigger trees from a nursery in Georgia and one in Alabama, but these are extremely large trees (15 gallon pots, several years old) and I don't think that's what you're looking for. But I got some excellent trees from those places, as well.