Transplanting tree seedlings

September 1, 2010

NOTE: Images in this archived article have been removed.

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I have a hunch that readers thought I was joking when I wrote recently about growing tree seedlings in roof gutters. The picture above proves that it works. I thought by now (late summer) the seedlings would have died for lack of water, but we’ve had regular rain so now I can transplant some of those seedlings this fall if not next spring. I can just lift the plants out of the gutter and plop them, roots and leaf mold intact, in a hole in the ground. Ever since a reader, Ohiofarmgirl, called a broadcast seeder “one of those hand-cranked thingies” on her website, I have been thinking of putting together a catalog of farming and gardening oddities with similar descriptions: sections of roof spouting I would label as “roof whatchamacallits for starting plants.”

There are weeds growing amid the tree seedlings up there in the gutter too, as you might notice. The trees are mostly maple, ash and elm seedlings which gives me an excuse to go into one of my favorite rants. The experts all tell me that I can kiss white ash trees goodbye because the emerald ash borer is killing them. Yes, the old ashes are all dying, but my woodlot is full of seedlings, just coming up wherever sufficient sunlight penetrates the tree canopy or, as you can see, on the barn roof. I argue that when the ash borer has killed off the older trees, it will run out of food and die off too, before these seedlings get old enough for them to kill. A whole new generation of ash trees will come along. Ash trees start producing seed when they are mere saplings.

That is what happened to the elm. Lots of new young seedling elms are growing all over our woodlot. They get old enough to produce seed before they are struck down like their parents. If we can just keep out of the woods those experts who want to kill all the endangered trees to stop the spread of a disease or predator, the ash will survive.

There are also wild cherry and cottonwood seedlings in the roof gutter, which at first surprised me since neither of these trees grows close enough to the barn to drop seeds on the roof. The cherry seedlings, I assume, got there because birds ate the fruit and then pooped on the roof. Cottonwood seeds, as the name implies, are carried along in the wind because of the cottony growth around the seeds, so they can float a considerable distance before coming to rest on earth. Our big cottonwood is at least a thousand feet from the barn.

All of which underlines a truth or two. First of all, old nature is one wonderfully adaptable mother. Secondly, one learns only by laboriously digging up tree seedlings and transplanting them that unless you have an automatic roof whatchamacallit, it is easier to let nature do the planting or plant seeds where you want the trees to grow so you don’t have to move the seedlings.

Many people believe that to get a new tree to grow faster to enhance a landscape, the larger the transplant, the better. Actually, an undisturbed tree growing up from seed will often catch up with the transplant in about five years, and will in any event grow more vigorously with a much better chance of survival than the transplant. The bigger the transplant tree, the riskier the chances of survival, and of course, the higher the cost of moving the tree.

This can be true even of fruit trees which we have been taught must be purchased as grafted transplants from nurseries. If you wish to be sure of getting a good, named variety, that is true (although sometimes the good, named variety turns out to be something else). However we are right now gorging on delicious peaches from unnamed seedling trees that came up on their own around our chicken coop (as I wrote about in a post last year, “Peach Trees Light Up The Old Henhouse”).

These peach trees are right next to the barn. If a peach tree seedling comes up in the gutter, now that would be another pleasant surprise. The trees aren’t tall enough yet to drop a seed on the roof, but I suppose a squirrel or an opossum might carry a peach up on the barn roof, eat it, and let the seed slide into the gutter. But I have a better idea. I will eat the peaches and put the seeds in the gutter, er, in my roof whatchamacallit, myself.

Gene Logsdon

Gene and Carol Logsdon have a small-scale experimental farm in Wyandot County, Ohio. Gene is the author of numerous books and magazine articles on farm-related issues, and believes sustainable pastoral farming is the solution for our stressed agricultural system.

Tags: Food