Thirsty Dirt: Deciduous Dilemma

Let’s talk about trees for a few minutes.

We love trees and wish we had more on our acreage. Thankfully we do have a decent amount of trees; most new acreages in the Peace Country are built on land that was once farmed and have very few, if any trees.

Our mix of trees consists of a few different species of Poplar, Spruce and Pine. They are scattered around our acreage but most border the north property line or can be found in the lawn in the NW section of our acreage. Due to the abundant moisture this year they are all flourishing and boasting an extraordinary amount of new growth. We pay special attention to our Pine trees in attempt to keep the Pine Beetles away: we attach Verbenone pouches in early summer and spray them with Carbaryl throughout the year. (If we lost our Pine trees we’d be devastated.)

We would like to have more trees along our east property line but trees take forever to grow and are ridiculously expensive to buy. I’m very excited about something I found that I hope will be a solution to our tree predicament and feel the need to share.

My solution to our tree predicament is this: Rooter Pots from Lee Valley:

www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?c=&p=46938&cat=2,47236

I bought these a few years ago and was reluctant to try them because I wasn’t sure how well they would work, if they would work at all. About a month ago I dug them out and put them to the test. I placed the pots on branches of a fast growing type of Poplar and now I can proudly say I have more 5 trees that are about 3 feet tall.

This system and method for starting new trees works amazing well and I would recommend it to anyone who has and wants more deciduous trees. In the instructions it says it can take up to 8 weeks for the trees to root and mine rooted in about a month. If I don’t sit around too long and get my butt in gear I should be able to get a second batch of new trees before the fall.

I’m so excited about how well it worked I have to show you the results.