So last October I planted a lot of various trees from Nativ Nursuries in my yard and pasture for a few reasons. It basically boiled down to they have a lot of choices and are cheap and me not being in a hurry.

I got a dozen white oaks and tree tubes in a deal they were running at the time in addition to some scarlet oaks, pin oaks, shuwillow oak hybrids and mastadon burr oaks (and some others to try). I think altogether I got around 30 trees, plus ~20 tubes and a few bags of the fertilizer (2 separate orders a few weeks apart). Ordering was easy and shipping was very fast. I think it took like 2 days to receive the trees. I only bought rapid mast seedlings (not a fan of bare root seedlings as I've had bad luck with them in the past).

All trees received were healthy, leafy, a foot or taller and bundled together with ice in plastic wrapping to keep them cool and wet.

Here's how they arrive:


Here's a scarlet oak just planted:


Tubes around the trees:


Basically I planted about 16 in the yard with about half in tubes and 10 in the pastures with tubes and 4 more without. I put the fertilizer around most trees as I planted them.

Now that they are starting to leaf out I can say that all but 2 trees are still alive. I watered them the first few weeks then let nature take care of it after that and they've all done well. Several have grown a good bit already and will hopefully grow out of the tubes or at least to the tops this year.

More to come shortly...

How long do you leave the tubes on the trees? It doesn't stunt their growth at all?

The shuwillows have done excellent. Very leafy and noticeable growth already. The mastadon burr oaks are doing great as well and have massive leaves and some noticeable growth. The white oaks are very hardy and are the ones that have survived in the pasture without tubes, neglected with watering and having been picked on by the cows (pre-fences). A few were pulled out of the ground even, but I replanted them and 2 out of 3 are still looking good today. The few that are dead are totally my fault and should be at 100% success rate. The scarlets look great and are coming along just fine. I'm hoping they end up growing relatively quick. Overall though, everything looks good and should grow a good bit this year. I've got tubes around about half of each species of trees to see if it makes a difference or not, but so far it appears to be as the trees in tubes are noticeably bigger. Here's a few pictures of everything so far:










Overall I'm very happy with the service, quality of the products and trees and price. I'll definitely be buying more from them in the future. Yes, they are seedlings and small, but if you're wanting to buy in bulk and plant a bunch of trees on your place for hunting or whatever reason, this is a great option. I've found the tubes are worth it and I've put cayenne pepper around the tops of them to keep cows off, which has actually worked so far. Because the roots are small, planting these is super fast and easy. I'll keep updating this thread as the trees keep growing if I remember.

If you're ever able to catch a deal where they have a dozen or so for sale or find a pack that has trees you like, you can save quite a bit. And the more tubes you get, the more they mark them down.

The tubes are great for spraying around, however don't weedeat around them. I've shredded a little bit of two of them by getting too close.

They were out of pecans when I was ordering one time so I may get a dozen or so this year and a dozen burr oaks or something similar and try them on one of our places. I won't be able to baby sit them and water them much so we'll see how they do all on their own.

They are running an oak sale right now. $40 for a variety of a dozen oaks and free shipping. Great deal for anyone wanting to give it a try for cheap. Shipping is usually like $20 or so, so you'll save around 40% or so off the total order (just guessing without putting a pencil to it, but probably close).

Wouldn't it be helpful to put some mulch around these so the tiny little trees aren't competing with the roots of 100's of grass plants for water?