Wagmore Farm: How We Found Cheap Trees

In the last post, I talked about the trees we plan to plant in The Bloody Great Forest.  Since we need to find and plant more than 300 trees, and my last name isn’t Gates or Buffett, finding inexpensive sources of trees was paramount. 

I started with one of the helpful tree people who helped me evaluate options for the screen.  His business is based North of Seattle.  If you need trees and live up that way,  I highly recommend contacting him.  Unfortunately, the shipping would have been prohibitively high given the number of trees I need, so I had to find trees in and around Wagmore.  One would think that would be easy (it is in the Evergreen State afterall), but it took me a surprising long time…

All the trees we’re planting this time around I find via Craigslist.  I love Craigslist.  I found one grower and one large nursery who, together, provided us with nearly 150 trees.  Cheap.  Apparently one can get good deals on trees in the middle of winter.  Go figure.  We ended up paying between $25-$50 for 5' - 8' trees.  I am very happy with this!

The Husband is working on getting these trees in the ground.  I'll share more of his adventures in tree planting in the next few days, once I get an update.  In the spring, we'll stand back and take a look at the overall screen and try to imagine how it will look from the house.  I want to make sure we have a natural forest look from the house, backed by a thick-you-can't-see-anything-through-it screen.  This might mean buying more larger trees from the nurseries we've already worked with.

If our screen is in good shape, we'll likely fill in the rest of the forest with trees from the county foresters association seedling sale (the same place we got the our first lot of baby trees).  The babies require more tending for a few years, but they're a heck of a lot cheaper, and it's fun to watch them grow…

Here's an image my nephew created for me.  

It captures the impenetrable forest feel perfectly.

If I can't have Ents maybe I can have Flying Monkeys?