Who wants to help me plant 1000 trees?

Hey, I am starting this thread as a way to motivate myself, and hopefully encourage some other people to plant more trees. My goal is to plant at least a dozen trees a year on my property. Are there 100 more people who could do the same? Could we do 1000 trees every year? I am already living on a forested property, so I am now "upgrading" my woods. I cut down the areas with small scrubby trees for firewood, and plant in big conifers that will keep growing for centuries. But really, any tree should count. I have plans to put in some fruit trees, I will add those to the tally when I get to them.

Post a picture when you plant a tree, and update the count; like this


Zero trees.

is this like a go fund me project?
I planted about 650 trees on my property all came from state dept of forestry for less than $1 each. all fruit and nut trees. and also a dozen or so fruit trees I got elsewhere that cost much more
I have a little more open space but have thought maybe it be good idea to have so place for some row crops or other projects.

I plant a few hundred every year and am not far. If you have space and inclination I highly recommend some chestnuts. They're great for pollinators (even though they're technically wind pollinated), they live a long time, and they're very productive of starch. One tree near me produced 400 pounds in its lowest year, and 1400 pounds in its highest (this was after squirrels and jays had taken their share).

Other good choices include blue elderberry, serviceberry (saskatoon), linden, and sourwood (sorrel) tree (especially good for bees) Do you have a way to water the trees? They have a high risk of dying without summer watering, these days

wow, 400 pounds from one tree on a bad year, any idea how old the tree is? I had no idea they could produce that much, about 500 of my trees are chestnuts , I was thinking in 25 years 100lbs a tree would be something special.
I kind of look at it like, in many in places that grow olives the trees grow for 100's to maybe thousand years, a tree planted now will provide for future generations.

Where I live in the desert SW of the US, every tree requires a sturdy circle of rabbit and peccary proof fencing around it for the first few years, plus regular water.  Peccary are also called javelina, and they are similar to a wild boar.  Peccary-proof tree protection requires two t-posts or rebar in the ground to hold it!  So it's a little slower going for us.  
But since moving to this house we've planted:

3 palo verdes
1 albizza (mimosa)
1 redbud
2 black locust
1 black mulberry

We've also planted 6 or so vitex (Chaste Berry) bushes and 3 pomegranates.  And next we are putting in another black locust and a netleaf hackberry.

So that's 8 nitrogen fixing trees going in, and two fruiting trees (for supporting wildlife), and 9 bushes (three pomegranates for fruit, and the vitex for attracting bees and butterflies).

The vitex are the only ones we can put in the ground without protection.  Nothing seems to want to eat them... which is so nice! They also are incredibly drought tolerant.  I saw my first Monarch butterfly on one of those vitex.

Most of these trees and bushes we propagated from seed and cuttings, or received as gifts or trades from others who had propagated them.  We only bought a few of them - the pomegranates and mulberry.

We are moving to another property soon where we are building our house.  I was inspired by Geoff Lawton's description of he and his family moving to and creating Zatuna Farm - he said they moved there with something like 1/4 acre of nursery stock to plant!  I'd love to have that when we move.  At our next place, we are intending to fence off our yard so we don't' have to protect every plant from peccaries - this will make tree and cactus planting a lot easier.

So we went to nearby towns and collected seeds from tons of trees this last month.  Just driving around neighborhoods we found various palo verdes, golden leadball, redbud, velvet mesquite, shoestring acacia, Texas mountain laurel, and many others. Very exciting!  It's the perfect time to forage free seeds.

Now I'm starting a hundred+ trees and bushes in our little greenhouse for planting at our next place.

is this like a go fund me project?  

I was thinking it would be more like one of those fundraiser things, where you keep filling in the little thermometer until you hit your goal. The idea is just to try and get more people engaged and excited about planting trees. I had been reading the articles about the wildfires threatening the ancient grove of sequoias down in California, and the thought of even one 2000 year-old tree burning down is kinda depressing. It seems like a changing climate is really going to take a toll on our forests, so the more people that can help stem those losses the better. I realize 1000 trees is nothing in the grand scheme of things, but "the man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."

I really do like the thought of chestnuts, as they produce lots of food, are also great carbon sinks, are drought tolerant, and should help fireproof the landscape. I need to figure out where I could put a few on my property - open space has to be carved out of the blackberries and brush (and it is a lot of work).

Do you have a picture of your recently planted trees, Bruce or James? And my hat is off to you Kim, for managing to get trees going in harsh desert conditions. Post a picture on here, I would love to see it.

I love this.  I just planted a lemon tree a couple of days ago.  I lost an apple tree this summer so I have to plant at least one to pollinate the one I have, but there are two I want.  I'm not sure I can afford 9 more trees, but I have 3 plum seeds in the fridge to start in spring.  When bare root trees arrive I want a couple of cherry, a nectarine, and a couple more peach.  I also want to try to start a grapefruit and lime from seed.  Most of the trees I will plant will be in 2022.  
I hope you make your goal. Good luck.

I love this idea and would love to participate. Alas, ours is a very small property. So nstead I use ecosia (ecosia.org) as my search engine, and they will plant trees for me. So far they are up to 134,897,133 trees planted last time I checked, all from people using ecosia as their search engine. It'll have to do for now. :-)

I will commit to planting 100 trees on my 10 acres in the Mojave Desert, California, over the next cool 5 months. My small team and I planted 120 here trees in 2016. So 100 is doable. Only planted about 20 trees a year since then.
Last year three owls moved into my little 11 year old forest of tall windbreak trees windward of the veg garden. My trees are getting noticed!
I bought 19 potted trees last week, mostly from a community College Ag Dept sale, many desert natives and 8 are nitrogen fixing.
The other 81 trees I will start from seeds and cuttings. I've been collecting tree seeds as I see them as I drive by. I hire a strong teenager to dig the 24" holes below the caliche level.  I start cuttings in their permanent hole in the soil using a rooting hormone and a mycorrhizal innoculant blend. Each new tree in the ground gets a cylinder of rabbit wire around it and 2 dripline emitters. We elevate the driplines on stakes or tree cylinders to a height the rabbits can't reach. They just get to nibble off low branches that stick out through the wires.
I start the tree seeds in the house and move them out to the solar heated, non-freezing greenhouse when they get too crowded in here. We will transplant them outside in late winter.
I'm just starting to get into Russian olives for nitrogen fixing and evergreen windbreaks. I've seen only 3 of them locally and there's no evidence of their spreading or being invasive around here. They take our extremes of temp, high winds, alkaline soil and salty well water. I harvested handfuls of mature seeds last week by the rosdside and will see if I can get them to sprout.

I myself am still working on planting all kinds of things, not just trees, but am doing so primarily from seed.

Tree-wise, this year, I did some Hoptree, a couple Hophornbeam that I collected seeds from when I was walking last summer, some Serviceberry, Black Cherry, Hackberry, Virginia Persimmon, Black Tupelo, Black & Red Elderberries, Honey Locust, Prickly Ash & a two Beeches. We'll just have to wait & see how this ends up going. A lot of the places I planted have bad soil, I'm still not sure if I'm planting the seeds right when in bare clay- which, the vast majority is either bare clay or sand- & I don't know how well I'll be able to defend seedlings I put in the middle of actual forests from deer & rabbit browsing without protection, as my finances are limited. I'm hoping that just regular trips to those places without disturbing the plants overtly ought to deter animals from going near them, but I have no idea. The ones I planted in the open are easier to protect from animals, but much harder to protect from the sun. Year two of taking this seriously, & I'm honestly still in experimental phase.

I personally don't have the space, but we have several old sugar oaks which drop a ton of acorns each year. They are finally starting to break out, and I've taught my 3 year old that they are "baby tree"s. She then proceeds to run around planting them in my garden and yard.
We have a friend who had to put down his horse last Friday, and I told her to find one to give him in memorial. She filled a 1gallon bucket because she couldn't pick just one. I'll probably put one in a pot for him to keep and plant when it is big enough.
I have planted one tree for each of my daughters, to include oak, magnolia, and maple.
If anyone wants some NC sugar oaks, let me know. But because I am surrounded by national forest, and the Long-leaf pine projects make it very difficult to plant outside my own property. But I support you 100%. I plan on challenging my children to plant 100 before their 10th Birthday. The oldest is at 16 and only 7years old.

I had forgotten about this thread, but I did just recently transplant 6 madrone seedlings, so I am going to count it! I saw a bunch growing under a doug fir, so I dug them up and moved them to a spot where they will have some space. They are notoriously hard to transplant, so hopefully being small will help, and I tried to get a good chunk of soil along with them.

I'm essentially living in a Doug Fir/Cedar/Big Leaf Maple forest - think *really tall trees*, so finding nooks and crannies where a tree will survive in the forest is hard, and my few sunny areas had Himalayan Blackberry taking over when we got here. That limits my options, but this winter I got two apple trees planted and two black current bushes if they count.

I'm sure it doesn't count to plant Rosemary, but I managed to root 3 cuttings, and so far all three are looking happy in the ground.
I'm currently trying to root two Salal cuttings, and I've asked 4 citrus seeds to germinate in pots on top of my fridge, so I'd appreciate people thinking positive thoughts their direction as so far I've had no luck with salal, and the "cold hardy citrus" claim they like to germinate when the house is 75F (the *outside* of the package didn't admit to this or I wouldn't have bought them - my house is rarely that warm during the day, let alone at night!).

Chestnuts are sooo... on my wish-list, but none of the ones I tried to plant survived. (3) I've got some seeds, so I'm thinking I'll try to plant like a squirrel in spots they might make a go of it and cross my fingers. I only have to protect from bunnies and deer - not peccary - but it still means keeping an eye on things as they grow which can be hard if things get hectic.

This is a great challenge, and I may not be able to contribute much, but all we can do is what we can do...

For the most part I don't believe in planting trees anymore. There is no telling how many I have planted over the years, but it is certainly in the hundreds if not thousands.  I suspect in fact, that few if any individuals have planted more trees than I have, I've been doing it for close to sixty years.

When I say I don't believe in doing it anymore it's because it's too much trouble and the failure rate is too high. I mean you have to get the tree, then you got to find a spot, dig the hole, make sure the roots are appropriately arranged, fill it back up, water it, water it, on and on, just way too much trouble.

So now and for several years I plant trees seeds instead of trees, by the hundreds. Of course, many don't sprout or thrive if they do but if plant say 100 pecans, I'm sure probably 10% or more do thrive. Same with walnuts and acorns.  Actually, now I have gotten even lazier. I don't plant them at all. I just go to the little towns near where I live, the courthouse yards, the cemeteries, along the sidewalks and collect pecans and acorns by the thousands. Then I just take them out in the woods and dump them in big piles for the squirrels.

Of course, the squirrels eat some and stash some in places they won't grow but they plant the rest.  I can spend an afternoon collecting buckets full of seeds, another afternoon dumping them around and in just that amount of time, based on my observation just of the number of pecan saplings in my neighborhood I have planted way more trees than I could have by planting them individually myself. I wish more people would do this. It's so much easier and I believe more effective.

This doesn't work with all trees. The maples that drop seeds in spring for example are an exception to this technique. For them I collect and start the seeds and still have to plant the seedlings but, lacking a large tap root they transplant easily. Actually, with these, I sell or give them away as I'm out of places to plant on my own place.  

In 5 weeks I will show up to Wheaton Labs with all my belongings to start building my wofati-based life. One of the first tasks in building a junkpole fence around the 2 acres, and just inside of that I will be planting osage orange (maclura pomifera) seeds at 9 inch spacings as a living fence. That should work out to 1200-1300 seeds, and I'll probably put two in each spot to ensure one sprouts. After the wofati is built I'll be working out fruit and nut trees inside the fence, and probably some black locust (robinia pseudoacacia) mixed in as part of the nitrogen fixing support plants.

I'm not sure if osage orange will survive as seedlings unprotected from deer browse, but I will also try some samples outside the fence, with and without a few protective sticks. If the first living fence does well, with Paul's OK I'll make another which has mostly black locust inside, for use in a coppice rotation. I've read that deer love new shoots after coppicing, so they will need protection to regrow. I'm hoping to also plant a living fence around the other wofatis with his OK, as the junkpole fence will eventually need to be replaced.

I'm slowing down on the tree planting now, since my field is getting full! The most recent tree I planted was a plum (one of the slightly mysterious plums from Ac). I actually managed to plant two trees since the root that Ac sent had two shoots....The picture below isn't that great, but you can see the mulched area.
I'm hoping to plant some Walnut and/or heartnut trees this year too. It's Queen Elizabeth's 70th year of reign, so I thought some Juglans regia would be a nice gesture. I already have a couple of 'royal oaks' grown from seeds from one of the royal estates planted 10 years ago. Anyway I quite fancy walnuts, and if I do get fruit, I can always try pickling them if they don't ripen...

Mark Brunnr wrote:planting osage orange (maclura pomifera) seeds at 9 inch spacings as a living fence. That should work out to 1200-1300 seeds, and I'll probably put two in each spot to ensure one sprouts.

I live about an hour from there and I've got a few osage orange seedlings that are going on their 3rd year. I'm happy enough with the survival rate that I'm going to grow out a bunch for my tree nursery this year. So if you need some more to fill in the gaps later on, hit me up.

I set out my food savanna with spacing to allow for plenty of grass growth between the mature trees.  But, they are slow growing and I’m jonesing for more trees, so I am hatching a plan to plant another 40ish trees purely for fodder (and pruned hard to keep them small).  When and if the day comes, I won’t feel too bad about removing them if need be.  The carbon farming part will come from biocharring the woody leftovers from the fodder.

Carl I was wondering how close you are to your 1000 trees.  In 2022 I planted 6 more fruit trees. A lime, a peach, a nectarine, an apple, and 2 cherry.  It's not much help in the grand scheme of things, but tree's are expensive, and take some care in the beginning.  So far they are all doing well.  Next I want to plant a grapefruit, and 2 avocados, and a prune.  Just adding a few trees each year.
I also saved an orange and satsuma.  They were both on deaths door, and not producing fruit.  Trimmed them back heavily, spread wood chips around the base out to the drip line.  Made sure to water a bit more.  Now it's like night and day.  They look so much better, and both are loaded with fruit.  To think my son wanted to cut them down. (Because he thought they were both pretty much dead)
Good luck, I hope you made your goal.

We did 40 in our wood line. 20 hardy pecan, 20 sugar maple. We'll see who thrives

I planted about 350 fruit trees this year, with plans for doing a full 1000 next year. I get the trees for under 50 cents a piece from my state nursery, so if more than a quarter survive I'm quite happy. I try trim the weeds around them 2 or 3 times a year, but that's about it in terms of maintenance I do for the trees (i.e., no water, fertilizer, etc.)

For the 350 this year I was using a battery powered drill with a 4" auger to make the holes. While better than hand digging, it was still a lot of work. For next year, I'll be using a 6" gas powered auger for the holes which should make things much easier.

Gray Henon wrote:I set out my food savanna with spacing to allow for plenty of grass growth between the mature trees.  But, they are slow growing and I’m jonesing for more trees, so I am hatching a plan to plant another 40ish trees purely for fodder (and pruned hard to keep them small).  When and if the day comes, I won’t feel too bad about removing them if need be.  The carbon farming part will come from biocharring the woody leftovers from the fodder.

Just wanted to say that I followed through with my plan.  I need to do a final count of survivors, I lost a few very small transplants, but most of the trees are doing well.  Also volunteered at a local park doing a reforestation project.  I didn’t plant any trees, but I did assemble a nice pile of tree tubes, as did my son.

Well, Carl, I really feel like you do about trees: they are truly essential and not just for eating from them or filtering the water underground but also for temperature moderation. Their roots hold the soil close and reduce erosion, so they are truly necessary for life itself.
Have you ever gone under a tree in the heat of the day and thought: Wow, it feels so so good here!?
Folks have been noticing that temperatures this year are downright beastly. Planting annual crops just won't cut the mustard when we are thinking about cooling an area or saving water. Trees are truly essential for our life, as important as water, and they do go together, as areas without trees usually are pretty poor on water too. There is a "what came first, the chicken or the egg" here, but the symbiosis runs both ways.
The island of Haiti used to have lush forests, but deforestation has brought them ruin and they are now a poor country that cannot sustain itself. Other shorter plants are dying, along with the wildlife. there is mass extinction.
https://whyy.org/articles/pa-researcher-helps-document-deforestation-mass-extinction-in-haiti/
Do we have trees because we have water, or do we have water because we have trees?
Someone in this thread mentioned the importance of planting your trees where you can tend to them first, with water being an important point. Yes, especially if you plant trees that are a couple of years old. The transfer shock is hard on them.
I love this site about trees in general, and I think you will too:
https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/inspirational-quotes-about-trees
So, yes, I'm planting trees: Apple trees, plum trees, pear trees, chestnuts mulberry trees. Yes, lots of fruit trees, but maples too. sugar maples especially. But there should not be the promise of fruit at the end of the road. I plant these because I collect pips, stones, nuts and just plain pop them in the ground. That's the easiest way to plant trees. Some will be good, some definitely less so, but they will all help to sustain life and bring water to us. Planting trees that are already several years old will bring you fruit/ shade etc. sooner, but they may also falter from the transplant shock and at my age, I'm not into investing $40 in a bigger tree that may not make it. I love Rainier cherries, but no one grows them here, yet I'm told they can thrive in zone 4, so I'll try.. So I'm tossing the stones in my woods. If they make it, fine. If not, it is fine too.
And I'm learning to make cuttings. If they make it, fine. If they don't I didn't have any money invested in them, so no big loss.
I bought some chestnuts around Christmas last year. I added damp moss and plopped them in a bag in the fridge. Around March, I took a peek and saw that quite a few had sprouted and I thought: It is too early to plant them [frozen ground here] and they grow a long taproot that doesn't like to be disturbed.
So I bought a length of cheap plastic sewer pipe [about 4-5" in diameter and cut it in 12" lengths, filled them with soil and sat the whole thing in a big plastic tote. All but 2 made it, so I had 15. In late April/ early May, they were ready to plant: The roots had reached the bottom of the tote and were  just starting to curl! I used an electric auger, a little Ryobi. It takes less than a minute to make a suitable hole. The diameter was just a tad bigger than the sewer pipe and I went to work. They are all doing fine. I'm not sure how fast they grow, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter even if I never taste a nut from them. someone will...
Those sugar maple leaves I collect each year are another project. Pick them up and toss them over the ground right before the first snow. Nature will do the rest. Some will falter, but many will find fertile ground. I have no money invested in them. I may never boil their sap... but someone will. Someone will feel good in their shade. That is important.

Tree tally, one decade, three city lots.  2 black locust planted from seed,  now fully grown.   One weeping willow, two curly willow and one naishiki  willow grown from cuttings, fully grown and many babies propagated.  One linden.  Two hawthorn.   Three dogwood.  Three pears, one succumbed to fire blight.  Two plum.  Three apple.  Three peach.  Two poplar just showed up today... on their own.  Two guomi and 6 elder which are tree sized shrubs.   One thornless honey locust.  Many maples from seed in a little shade nursery,  not sure where to gift them.
Many trees of heaven and black locust children removed.  One stately pine sadly removed to give ☀ to everybody else.  

Gosh!! 2 posts in on day!!!
Inspiration that ‘s what is, thank you all.
There are at least 5 ash trees in every spade of soil here, so the saying goes.

I recently planted several trees with the effort of tap roots, spoilt them, maybe too much and there was a very high mortality rate? The heat? They might decide to revive as some do.

I keep saying and noticing that very odd things are happening with the weather.
Fruit trees in flower in warm February, loss of flowers in March/April frosts and big rain, not the expected chronology over here.
There are many trees self seeding so I look and decide, like a Roman empress, you live or you return to mulch.
There are loads of ash, oak, holly, hawthorn, laurel, cherry, sweet chestnut, linden, apple, plum, walnut, cob, some that I haven’t been introduced to
A lot of work for an enthusiastic older girl.
There are hedges under construction, as long as neighbourly tractors don’t accidently, ahem, mow them down, again.
Threat of planks wth f off huge nails are going to line the perimeter. Warnings have been issued and I gather that tractor tyres are rather expensive.
And people complain about deer. Deer visit here too, oh well.

I really am switching off now, blessings for a wonderful day