I've bought over 400 total Scots pine, Green Ash, lilac, honey suckle (I know, I know) and golden willow from them. They're good plants.

But for this to succeed, listen to what they say, and follow their advice on ground preparation, use of weed barrier, fertilizer pellets, and their tall, "greenhouse" protective tubes. If you do all that, it all of a sudden gets a bit more expensive, maybe right up around $10 a tree.

The trees don't do much of anything for 2 seasons, and then the 3rd season, they start to take off. By year 4, they're out of the tubes, but you leave those on for further protection against deer and rodents. They finally disintegrate.

In 8 years, you'll have some beautiful 10 to 15 foot high trees.

You might want to check the neighborhood for pine bark beetles, because they will attack both Scots and Austrian. Ask me how I know....

Don't try to wing it, you'll likely lose everything.

David52,

Thanks for your help ! Even at $10 per tree is still a very good deal !

You mentioned "greenhouse" protective tubes, do you really need that for Austrian pines. I thought that they are deer and rodent resistant, at least I never saw any deers (which we have plenty) or rabbits trying to lunch on them :)

I have not seen any dead pine trees in the neighborhood (Timbers) and we have quite a few, so I would guess we don't have bark beetle problem or at least it is not bad. Having said that, I would like to protect new seedling against it -- is there any product you can spray yourself or do you have to hire a pro for that ?

Thanks again, Davie.

I'd sure go for that greenhouse tube - the tree will be twice the size by using it and it really protects them well.

Deer will destroy unprotected Austrian and Scots Pines. If you have a lot of deer around, I'd consider buying some Horse Fence and make a 6' dia circle around each tree - you don't need to do that until they're out of the protective green house cone, which will be a couple of years, but I've seen hundreds of Austrian and Scots pines around here completely decimated by deer - they'll chew off everything they can reach, unless they had a protective fence around them.

When we first tried this, DW and I spent a totally miserable, drizzly/snowing 30º windy day in April carefully planting 150 Scots pine, all 10 feet apart, 10 feet from the fence. This involved breaking rock, muddy soil, cold numb hands, etc. We finished it up in the dark, figured we'd go out and put the woven protective mesh (cheaper than the tubes) on them next day.

Of course, the deer came along and ate every one of them down to a nub that night. Lesson #1. Next year, we didn't make that mistake.

David52,

Thanks again for your help, you sure saved me some $$ (not to mention wasted time and frustration) with your "greenhouse cone" advice :) I wonder where in CO are you ? We live in Parker, just south of Denver -- our deers appear to be well behaved here, never saw one chewing on a pine tree.

Having said that, where did you get these "greenhouse cones" from, is it from the same DC Conservation people that sell seedlings ? I browsed their web site but couldn't find this item, I did find the fertilizer tablets you mentioned in the earlier post.

Also, do you have any information regarding spraying pines against bark beetle ? Another question is mulching, how much mulch did you put around the trees, just enough for a small seedling and then you keep adding as tree grows up ? Did you use any weed barrier fabric ?

Thanks again! Davie.

I assume you folks have enough land to qualify for the soil conservancy stuff? If you're borderline, they don't ask and really don't care .......

I looked on your Douglas County Soil Conservation website, and they don't seem to have the tree protective cones - I'd just email them and ask.

I'd also highly recommend their 6' wide by 300 foot rolls of weed barrier @ $125, thats by far the best deal in town and I still get my weed barrier from them. Buy a box of their staples too. It makes a huge difference on the growth of the trees, at least 2X, and well worth it. I use it in my orchards and vegetable gardens as well.

For the bark beetle, for a few years I sprayed, twice a year, the systemic pesticide Orthene, which is now off the market, I believe. I honestly don't know if I'm winning or not, I've lost 8 trees now dead as can be, and have a lot of trees that look to be riddled with beetles, but they're still growing and still green. And then sometimes they just break in half in the wind, and reveal at the break that there really wasn't anything there, along with the blue stain fungus that is the real culprit. At this point, I'm just replacing the ones that die with other stuff - my wind/visual/sound barrier is full of other stuff and is working pretty well.

Here's a gratuitous "Do what I say - not what I did" bit of advice :-). Try getting a variety of species for planting, so you don't end up with a mono-culture thats susceptible to a specific bug or issue. The Soil Conservancy agency might be a great place to ask, see if there are others willing to divide up a bundle/box of plants when they arrive, for more variety.

And as wasteful as it sounds, plant all of them, even in places that may not now seem like a good idea - because it's always easy to cut one down than start up a new tree years later. We planted a 'grove' of 8 or 9 green ash in one spot of the yard, and years later, ended up cutting down all but two of them, which just so happen to be the precise distance needed for hanging a hammock. they now shade the back door of the greenhouse in the summer. At the time we planted them, both the hammock and greenhouse were not even on the radar.