Getting Started Organically
start with the basics

Environmental Issues
legal and practical

Edible Garden
for food, drink & medicine

Trees & Shrubs
Mother Nature's way

Traute Klein, biogardener
Webmaster's background & work

Articles about Trees

Principles of Tree Pruning
There is a right time and method for pruning every type of tree or shrub.

Pruning Fruit Trees, Introduction
If fruit trees are severely pruned in their dormant state, they will reward you with an ample harvest.

Pruning Fruit Trees, Instructions
Step by step directions on pruning fruit trees of the rose family.

Email from Heaven
Includes some thoughts on my favorite tree, basswood.

Healing Trees
Trees are givers of life. They bring healing to the earth and her children.

Trees Free for the Taking
Where to find trees to plant if you cannot afford to pay for them.

Amazon Tree Books

Trees of North America
Golden Field Guide

More Tree & Pruning
Books at Amazon

Propagating Water-guzzling Hardwoods

by Traute Klein, biogardener

Do you want to plant some trees on ground which is flooded part of the year? Find out which trees are suitable and learn how to propagate them without spending a penny.

If you have land which is too wet, you can plant water-loving hardwoods without spending any money on them. In Manitoba where I garden, those trees are, in order of water consumption, willow, poplar, and dogwood. These trees produce their own rooting hormones. If you are not sure whether a tree is suitable for this method, you can test it by placing a cutting in a glass of water at any time of the year. If the cutting starts growing little bumps in a couple of days and roots in another couple, then the tree produces rooting hormones, and is therefore a good candidate for this method of propagation.

The Commercial Method

During the coldest part of winter, take cuttings at least the thickness of a thumb. Cut them to about 5" lengths. Place them upside down in a pail filled with sand. Fill the pail with water to the top of the sand. Keep the pail in a cool but frost-free place.

In the spring, you will find tiny bumps on the sticks where roots will soon set. That is the right time to set each one right side up in a pot of soil. Keep the soil uniformly moist, and transplant into a larger pot or into soil when the pot is completely filled with roots. Keep the new trees well watered the first summer.

My Method

If you have soaking wet ground during the spring melt, you can stick branches directly into the wet ground as soon as the frost is gone out of the soil. Especially willows will root easily this way. One warning: Do not plant willow or poplar within 100 feet of a building or underground pipe. The roots go wandering, looking for water. They end up plugging water and sewer lines, and they destroy foundations.

Do not choose water-loving plants unless you can give them what they crave. You need a really wet spring to satisfy their thirst. The trees are not suitable for cities, but they are ideal to soak up excess moisture in swampy country.

My Source of Information

I am fortunate to count the owners of Manitoba's largest tree nursery as my friends. The information on the commercial method comes from them. The rest is derived from my many years of experimenting. I tried the commercial method one winter just to make sure that it works. Since the land on which I am planting willows is flooded every spring, I can get away with simply sticking last year's shoots into the ground. As long as the water supply is ample until the shoots have rooted, I have no problem starting dozens of trees a year.

Since Manitoba's 1997 Flood of the Century, the ground water level has been rising each year, and part of my field has been under water all summer long. I have started more willows since 1997 than I can count.

If the water level keeps rising, maybe I won't need willows. I see that cattails are springing up in the wettest spots. I love them, because they purify the water which would otherwise become putrid.

Water and More Water

Don't tell anyone, but on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in July 2000, when I had no idea that the area had received 5" of rain the previous night, my truck got stuck in the hay and had to be pulled out with a huge tractor.

© Traute Klein, biogardener