planting fast to grow.. fast to disease.. fast to breakage weak wooded poplar or willow... will have you doing the same process in 10 to 15 years ..

see any upside in that sentence ..???

you are a farmer.. ever heard of the soil conservation district office.... there is one in every county ... usually attached to the extension or ag office .... see link for linn county IA ...

they offer BUNDLES of trees and shrubs ... small.. cheap.. and specially selected for IA ...

start by finding out if your county has such.. find their list of recommended plants ...

and then bring the list back here and we can discuss the pros and cons of such ...

whatever you do.. do NOT plant a monoculture ...

if there are certain spots.. where you want a prime specimen.. we can help there also ... but to really cover ground.. cheap... you will be planting small ...

there are other sources such as musser forest ... and i think.. evergreen nursery.. for small bulk plants ...

fall planting of bare root trees is prime ... if you can get them in time.. 6 to 8 weeks prior to ground freeze at a min ...

in the alternative.. as soon as the ground thaws.. up to 6 to 8 weeks prior to the heat of summer.. you are a farmer.. you understand ma natures sense of humor as to specific dates for those ideas ...

please.. stay away. from anything 'marketed' .. as fast growing ... its marketing hype ... i have planted 2 foot oaks.. and a year or two after getting ESTABLISHED.. put on 3 to 5 feet.. that is about as fast a need be ... and they can only live a hundred years.. and get 80 feet tall ..

crikey.. you cant even burn willow or poplar in the fireplace ...

ken

ps: i would NOT have done all that prep work ... i would have planted the trees and shrubs like a forester does ... i cant do another link ....

Here is a link that might be useful: llink

While there are some trees that consistently grow faster than others, it seems to me, IME, that 80% of all trees, in good conditions once established, grow somewhere around 2' per year on average, more or less. Often faster than that in their prime growing years, which varies by species but is usually from around the time they are an inch caliper up until they are about 20 years old, then slow down somewhat.

Even white oaks and sugar maples, two trees usually regarded as "slow" growing, will grow around this rate if they're established well and happy. Again, more or less, it's not an exact thing.

Now something like a Metasequoia, or the aforementioned willows, will do better, but most of those trees are not long-lived (except Metasequoia, which apparently is quite long lived, but nobody really knows yet, and appears that they can also eventually get to 200').

This post was edited by hairmetal4ever on Fri, Aug 22, 14 at 16:11

ALL my oaks grew faster than any other trees this year. Darn things really like sandy loam and put out two 2' flushes this year. Most are only 2-4 years in the ground.

Willows are a disaster in my opinion. Only nice in naturalized areas nears ponds, lakes, etc.

Tulip tree and dawn redwood are my favorite fast growing trees beyond oaks and maples.

Thanks for the responses, I didn't get emails about them like I thought I had signed up for, so I'm sorry for the delay.

First, Ken, I am very well aware of the NRCS office, the windbreak programs that they have available, and that they occasionally have trees for sale. The problem with their programs are that they are very, very specific in what THEY want and what THEY need to subsidize any of the tree planting. Still, yes, a viable option and they are someone that I am going to talk to. Also, thank you for the response!

I've heard both good and bad about the willows. As I stated, the only reason we even looked into them was for a quick windblock, knowing they have a young lifespan, and that their roots go like crazy, so I would have to be aware not to plant near any tile lines.

Also, we aren't planning on living here for 10+ years, so, while it's a bad solution of we were going to stay longer, it might be a good solution for the time being.

With that said, no decisions have been made yet on what to plant or when we are going to plant. We picked up about 3" of rain in the last there days, which would have been ideal, but oh well!

Also, the reason we cleaned it up is because whoever owned the place before us had cut stumps down to about 2 inches above the ground, and since you couldn't really see anything due to the long, overgrown grass between the prior-existing trees (the ones we cut down) and the old stumps, it made for some not so much fun mowing. Plus, it looks clean now, and will look really, really nice once we get it seeded and get our bushes and trees planted and established.

Are you planting mature burlapped trees, potted trees, or bare root? That may make a difference in when you plant. I find I've had the most success with small potted trees planted in the Fall.

If you are going to plant a row of something short lived, be sure to plant a row of longer lived "understudy" trees behind them, so that as they die off there will be trees behind them.

Ed, good point. That was one of the things I was thinking of doing.

Bushes on the north side, a row of the hybrid willows, and then a row of a pine/evergreen (whatever I can find that is going to be hardy in my area and with my light soil conditions). This would allow me, if we ended up staying longer than we are planning at this acreage, to weed out the hybrid's if they fail in 5-10 years, and still have sufficient cover and snow/wind block.

The trees would be bare root. I also have about 6 maples that are growing pretty well that were in one of my inlaws sheds gutters. I have them in a bucket of water right now, hoping to plant. They'll probably all die...but then again, could I pot them and try and keep them alive and established inside during the winter? I have a large picture window that I could set them in front of that would get sunlight the majority of the day...