Back in early March, Jeremy and I gathered at the homestead with a few friends. Over the winter I’d pre-ordered 80 young trees (aka saplings) making up 6 different tree varieties native to the Pacific northwest, and that spring morning we picked them up, loaded them into the cab of the truck, and headed to the homestead. Over the next few hours we planted over 60 trees altogether—it was a LOT of intense physical labor that entailed trekking through blackberry brambles and searching for soft spots in the ground (which as you guys know from this post, was very compacted from the logging process), but at the end of the day we were the best kind of sore, and it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. It was also the second-to-last time we saw our friends in-person before quarantine started, and I’m so grateful we were able to share this amazing day together out in the sun beforehand.

Jeremy and I went back a few days later and planted the last few saplings, and we’ve been checking on them every time we’ve visited the homestead since. It’s been so exciting to watch the new growth come out; seeing that and knowing that they’ll (hopefully) be around much longer than we ever will is a really special and rewarding feeling. I like to imagine what they’ll look like in 10 and 20 years’ time, when they’re towering tall over us and giving us a beautiful forest canopy to gather under again.

Some fun facts about trees

• Without forests on the coast, anywhere over 500 miles from a coastline would be a barren desert. The condensation that forms on the needles + leaves of trees from the ocean spray eventually evaporates and this is what creates clouds. Without clouds, there would be no rain. Without trees, there would be no clouds. This is why combatting de-forestation is so important.
• Trees communicate through an underground network of mycelium (aka fungus) that grows around tree roots. Trees create electronic impulses through the mycelium network to communicate with nearby trees, much like the neuron pathways in the human brain.
• They also communicate through scent. When attacked by predators/pests, some trees flood their bark with toxins and also emit a mixture of scent compounds that warns nearby trees of the attack, so the neighboring trees can preemptively fill their bark with toxins as well.
• Trees also exchange nutrients with one another through their mycelium network, to help keep the young trees they’ve created around them healthy. A beech tree stump was found in a forest in Germany that was from a tree cut down over 400 years ago, and yet it was still alive, thanks to the support of the tall trees around it sharing their nutrients with it for hundreds of years.

There’s a lot more than meets the eye when it comes to trees, and I *highly* recommend reading The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben if you have the time. It’s really easy to read, and paints a fascinating picture of the intelligence these creatures have. Just because they’re slow-growing doesn’t mean there’s not a lot going on in there under the bark + earth. I like to think of them as Peter Jackson depicted them in Lord of the Rings 🙂

When it comes to planting trees, using very young bare-root or plug saplings is *MUCH* better than buying a several-foot tall tree from a container. There’s a pile of bare-root trees in the very first photo of this post, if you’re curious about their appearance. When you plant a bare-root tree, the tree ends up being much hardier and more likely to survive for a very long time because it’s raised from a young age in a normal growing environment, and gets used to + builds up defenses against the natural elements like snow, drought, pests, etc. When you buy a tree that’s in a pot, it’s been pampered at a nursery it’s whole life, and is used to the nursery environment. It hasn’t developed the defenses to survive in the wild, and will likely die unless you’re able to give it weekly pampering for several years until it’s established.

If you’re worried about the growth rate, bare root trees usually out-grow their root-bound container transplant counterparts in a couple years. Because trees grown in containers have the roots so tightly packed together, they are a lot more at-risk for disease and the roots don’t grow as quickly as the young bare-root trees do. This means the tree isn’t able to get as much nutrients and water from the soil, which slows down its growth considerably, and make it more at risk for drying out in the summertime.

You can order bare-root trees online to be shipped to your house. They should be planted either in the spring or in the fall, when natural rainfall will help them stay hydrated. But if you’re able to water them, (like if you plant them in your backyard), that will help them, too! I put together a guide on how to plant a tree below, it’s a great activity to do outdoors with the people you’re quarantining with, or solo. It feels so good to do something that you know will benefit the earth and all its life-forms, including humans, for hundreds of years. Enjoy it my friends!