I ordered 500 white pines.
TimberPig.....Like DanO said, you' re jumping in with more than both feet.....man that' s alot of trees to plant!!!. Last year I had 250 pines to plant, and that was plenty for one person. Good luck with that.
I am also planting alot of pines to block the road view onto our property....(someday). Who knows how long it will take for them to mature enough that they actually develop a screen.

I' m still trying to find something fast greowing and brushy that would be good to plant in an area that the deer bed. I' m trying to enhance it, and make it thicker. Haven' t been able to come up with much. Mulberries...hmmm????

Dan, that' s alot of snow....hopefully it will melt for you guys. I have a feeling the wildlife is going to suffer this winter in alot of areas.
Here in VA we' ve had a heck of a tough winter too...(by our standards). Where I live, we' ve had about 80" of snow, which is more than double what our avg " good" winter would be. We had 36" in one storm a couple weeks ago. That sucked! I live way out int the country, with a almost 1/2 mile long driveway. It' s honestly been a royal pia! I feel like I live in alaska or something! [:@][:@] We haven' t seen the grass since mid Dec. We still have over a foot of snow on the ground, and it' s pouring down rain today. [:@] I was hoping to get some clover seeded in an area I have, but who knows. We' ve had enough moisture to last quite a while, that' s for sure. I' m beginning to think I should have built an ark instead of a house....

Come on SPRING!!!

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Brian; I' ll bet you look forward to planting the trees as much as I do. Only I get double the enjoyment when I plant my tree seedlings (walnut, persimmon, mulberry, oak) in the fall.

Dan O.

Sounds like alot of trees yall are planting. How much do they cost?

Ok Dan O and WV Hunter, you boys are starting to make me paranoid. The 3,500 trees I have will be planted by a mechanical planter pulled by a tractor. It cuts a trench with a large disc, 2 guys ride on it and drop trees into the trench, and the planter fills the trench back in. I sure as heck dont have any plans to plant all those trees by hand! Seriously though, the local County Conservation boys who are lending me the planter say I should be able to plant 5,000 trees in a good day with that thing. Do you think they are nuts?? Does anybody have any experience with using these planters?

As for the prairie grass, the County Conservation board actually comes in with seed drill and does all the planting for $20 / acre, so that wont really be too bad. All I have to do is control the weeds.

Mike Bell, the 3,500 trees I ordered came to around $1,400, but is cost shared through the NRCS.

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Timberpig; you should have no problems planting 3,500 trees with a tree planter. They' ve put in over 3,000 on my place in about half a day. My daughter plants trees as a student during the summer and she can do over 2,000 a day (16 hr) by hand. I' m old and decrepid and I can still handle 500+ before the muscles say ouch. The only thing with the planter; make sure that the soil is not too wet, especially if it' s clay. Some of the furrows didn' t close up and the clay dries in an open position instead of tight around the roots.

It' s a good idea to prespray wih Simazine before you plant. It' s easy to plant the rows and the weeds are held down for a year or so.

Dan O.

Whew, thanks guys, I can stop pacing the floor now! As for site prep, the area is along a creek in an old cow pasture. There are about 200 small scrub trees in this 7 acres that I will have removed with a bulldozer or backhoe as soon as the snow melts and the frost comes out (hopefully soon).
Other than that the ground cover is just very short pasture grass. I had initially planned to spray 4' strips with round-up, but the County boys thought I may be better off not spraying. Their theory is that the grass is well established and will choke out the weeds which will surely pop up in the dead area, and that I should just mow the grass short and keep it short. They did recommend spraying the strips with a pre-emergent after planting to prevent weeds from growing in the soil that the planter disturbs. This area should get plenty of moisture so I would think the biggest concern with competition would be sun light. I hope my trees do better than the ones I saw that the County boys planted last spring, but they were working with old crop ground.

Brian- I sure hope I dont have any problems with the tractor as I will be borrowing that too. That sounds like a pretty good method for maintaining proper spacing, thanks. I also thought that $20 / acre sounded like a pretty good deal, especially since I had no equipment anyway. Of course that doesnt include seed or site prep, but since it was a corn field last year, a little discing ought to do it. Do you usually get a soil test and fertilize for prairie grass?
Thanks.....Timber.

Timberpig; you should ask your local ag rep about the atrizine. It may still have an effect. As to spraying after you plant; they say it doesn' t hurt the trees but I noticed a big difference in tree growth with the best being no simazine - mow only, then simazine the fall before and the worst growth from post planting simazine. The trees that were sprayed seemed to have very little growth, even if they had grown for a year before (with good growth).

Dan O.