three free hazelnut trees anyone / 10 cheap other trees?

Not sure of limitations on where these trees will grow but the hazelnut project offers three free hazelnut bushes if you are willing to join thier project which i think involves measuring the bushes twice a year. http://www.arborday.org/shopping/memberships/hazelnut/index.cfm

The arbor-day foundation http://www.arborday.org/index.cfm offers 10 free trees to people who join their foundation for $10 and inexpensive trees beyond that (3-4 foot trees from what I see).

I have no idea if they offer this outside the united states, kind of doubt it as shipping living things across bourders gets complicated.

forgive me but i am bumping this up, it is a good time of year to think of getting more trees.

Not to poo-poo on this, but the trees I've gotten from Arbor Day have been some of the most consistently disappointing specimens I've ever received. The last time, a significant number were already dry-snap dead when they arrived.

We are members and I do support their mission, but in most instances I have chosen to order slightly more expensive trees from nurseries I trust.

Just my $0.02.

Read the reviews on DavesGarden. There are more negative reviews than positive.


Basically, if your main reason for sending money is to help their organization, then you are in luck.
If you are after the "free" trees you pay for with your membership, shop somewhere else.


http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/91/

Mainly complaints are due to the small size and widely varying quality of trees sent.
Dead trees, wrong types of trees,etc.

Also, another big complaint was the endless junkmail you start getting- numerous requests to rejoin, newsletters,etc.

Maybe a better choice for hazelnuts / other trees:

http://www.oikostreecrops.com :

http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/576/


Oikos American Hazelnut

Oikos Precocious Hazelnut

here is a sample of the negative reviews on arbor day foundation:

Negative BirdyNumNums
Omaha, NE
(1 review)
December 27, 2012 I 100% know for a fact that the Arbor Day Foundation has its own employees write positive reviews on Dave's Garden. I was told by the employees themselves. The ADF is SHADY! Nature Explore and the ADF have questionable dealings. Nature Explore actually has a church writing checks to their contractors. The IRS needs to look into both orgs.
Negative mgkd
Portland, OR
(1 review)
December 26, 2012 I just received an Arbor Day Foundation Tree Survey. I decided to look up that CEO's [Chief Executive's] salary: $380,164. The junk mail solicitation letter was "signed":
John Rosenow
Chief Executive

these people are not reviewing trees. I read more which seemed more to the point of the trees but this has not been what I have been hearing so... A local friend bought 100 trees and all but two or three survived nicely. I believe you when you say you got bad trees, did yu contact them about the problem? Did you plant any of them or assume they were all bad? I will not right here the trees i speak of are 30' tall now and things change and not always for the better.

On the other hand i love that other sight you posted, lovely to shop in plants which are more natural and hard to find....some things I never heard of. Thank you for that. I agree with you, buy from a well reviewed sight first. The cost is minimal on that sight as well.

hey do you know where I can find some red currant bushes?

I planted everything I received, some of them were just plain ol' dead. Judging by the packaging and labeling, I'd guess the stock they sell comes from the same places that supply the omnipresent Mega-Garden Supply Catalogs (Burgess and the myriad of others who use the exact same product photos, descriptions, and prices). My experience continues to be that they're cheap for a reason. Cheap trees whose viability is a crapshoot suddenly become much more expensive when you factor in the potential loss of an entire growing year due to poor product.

I will loudly vouch for Oikos Tree Crops as a quality, family owned company with stellar customer service. I have not only ordered from them regularly (with consistently excellent results), but have also had them go quite a bit out of their way to get me some materials in a rushed fashion to meet a deadline. The communication and service was top-notch throughout. Not to mention the service they provide niche interest garden folks like us by developing and making available highly specialized and useful plant material. I can't recommend them enough.

laura sharpe wrote:hey do you know where I can find some red currant bushes?

My top rec's would be One Green World or Raintree Nursery. I have bought and am growing red currants from both.

Nourse also has red currant bushes for sale. Good prices, larger company. Not organic by the way.

Matt Smith wrote:I planted everything I received, some of them were just plain ol' dead. ..... Cheap trees whose viability is a crapshoot suddenly become much more expensive when you factor in the potential loss of an entire growing year due to poor product.

I will loudly vouch for Oikos Tree Crops as a quality, family owned company with stellar customer service....... I can't recommend them enough.

I'm glad you you put you personal experiences here. I certainly don't intend to demonize Arborday. I agree with their mission to get people to grow trees, I personally plant any where from a few to dozens of trees a year- but I think it is a shame that they don't have better quality control with their own trees.
I think if they would go through their processes and fix their quality control problems and be able to provide consistent quality then that would clear up 90% of the complaints.

I agree with you about the time factor. I read some of those reviews and saw where some people waited years for their weeping willow to grow , only to find out that it was not a "weeping" willow, or growing an "almond" only to find out later it was a peach. Life is short, and trees take time.


Also glad to see your review of oikos, I had never heard of them before yesterday, but compare their reviews- I think they had ONE bad review out of dozens of good.
I'll probably buy some things from them.

I posted this as a source once and got similar remarks about really poor quality trees . Looking at their website, the scope of the place, it strikes me there is a lot more going on there than most projects I know of that are actually legitmate hard working folks and it just brings to mind the old adage if you want to know what really is "follow the money ".
Anyone else get that sense from it ?

Lisa Paulson wrote:I posted this as a source once and got similar remarks about really poor quality trees . Looking at their website, the scope of the place, it strikes me there is a lot more going on there than most projects I know of that are actually legitmate hard working folks and it just brings to mind the old adage if you want to know what really is "follow the money ".
Anyone else get that sense from it ?

I checked with some various charity review organizations, and it appears to me that part is legitimate and more or less effective.
The big boss makes $380,000 a year though...

My "sense" is that their trees result from a mass production process with defective oversight and quality control.

One insightful comment I saw on another site : For an organization that is trying to SAVE trees, they sure are using a lot of them in junk mailings.

I wasn't thinking they would be fraudulent so much as it appears maybe they know how to work a system , grants ? tax sheltering ? It would be interesting to really know the workings .

in all honesty it simply sounds like incompetence. They should offer faster mail options because of the live materials as well.

Rather than go for the Arbor Day trees (for the reasons already mentioned--poor choice in types, dead or dying before they arrive), I support the cause of reforestation in other ways. I've transplanted over 70 tiny cedar trees from fencelines where the neighbors would cut them down to a create a windbreak at the north edge of my property--wild birds use these for nesting areas and winter shelter, plus praying manti lay egg cases all over them. My chickens hide under them when hawks cruise overhead as well, and I've seen cottontails playing amid the trunks. Seedling mulberries and pawpaws grown from seed have also been transplanted to an area that was overgrown with chinese privet and japanese hneysuckle which were choking out native bushes and small trees--they'll fill in the gaps in the woodline, help prevent erosion, maintain the diversity of the woods and I happily intend to share the 'fruits' of my labors with the local wild turkeys and deer. Had to girdle a couple of paulonia trees up the hill to kill them out of an area that had been left in shambles after being clearcut a few years back, but fortunately the local tulip poplars and black walnuts and cottonwoods have made great progress at taking over that area without any other help. I've also been transplanting all the wild blackberry plants that sprout up under trees and fencelines in the area to some out of the way niches in the woods edge--I actually watched a harvestman spiker sucking a berry section dry with its fangs one evening while collecting berries (it was COOOOL!)

I have a couple variety of native plums that send up large numbers of suckers from the roots, and some of these I'll be transplanting to eroded areas (might help keep the raccoons entertained AWAY from my other fruit trees).

laura sharpe wrote:hey do you know where I can find some red currant bushes?

i bought a couple bundles of 10 currants, red lake, white imperial, and crandal cloves from St. Lawrence Nurseries and they came in great shape!

this season will be the third in a row i've bought from them. Food Forest Farm in holyoke, ma has great potted plants too but the price is a bit more.

We did this a few years ago, it took them around 18 months to send my trees. And when they got here they were pathetic.tiny bare root trees with no root systems. I think one tree lived.

If you want hazelnuts or other permie trees get a group together and order from lawyer nursery. You have to buy 50-100 but they are about 70cents each. With a group purchase this becomes a great deal to get healthy trees for cheap, and every tree I've gotten from lawyer nursery was top notch and I have ordered well over 500 trees from them.

Update:

Since this discussion, I've bought trees and other plants from Oikos Tree Crops, and have had nothing but good experiences.
Just got two Precocious Hazelnut trees in the mail this morning, they are each about 1 foot / 30CM tall and the leaves are not even wilted.

Very impressed.