Trees & Shrubs
Mother Nature's way

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Getting Started Organically
start with the basics

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Traute Klein, biogardener
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Articles about Trees

Healing Trees
Trees held the secret to health and healing in the original Garden of Eden. The are therefore the key to establishing my own Paradise.

Propagating Water-guzzling Hardwoods
If you have soaking wet soil in the spring, if you have more rain than you know what to do with, you can grow trees without digging.

Principles of Tree Pruning
Pruning trees and shrubs helps trees to grow to to optimum health. Learn the appropriate time and method for each tree before you amputate indiscriminately.

Amazon Books

Trees of North America
Golden Field Guide

More Tree & Pruning Books

Trees Free for the Taking

by Traute Klein, biogardener

You want to plant trees, lots of trees, but don't have money to buy them? No problem! They are free for the taking, and I am planting them. Learn where to find them.

Stop the Pollution

When I am asked about the single most effective method of saving the earth from pollution and mankind from illness, I say, "Plant more trees." That is exactly what I have been trying to do for the last 18 years since I was disabled in a car accident. Since I was no longer able to teach, I had lots of time, and I wanted to do something useful. Planting trees had always been one of my goals, and now was my chance.

We own a 20 acre farm property which various farmers were leasing from us for not even enough money to pay the tax bill. I was not happy with what they were doing with it the land either, growing wheat year after year and spraying it with broadleaf herbicide to eliminate weeds.

I had to do something to stop the madness and to try to bring a measure of health to a polluted field. If I stopped all further spraying, I was hoping that the ground water would eventually recover, that earth worms, insects, and bacteria would return, and that the field would become a shelter for the area's wildlife. Unfortunately, I also had no income for 16 years. Necessity, however, is the mother of invention, and I was determined to convert this bare piece of prairie gumbo to an environmentally friendly Garden of Eden.

Trees to the Rescue

Trees and shrubs were the answer, but until I could get around to planting them, I had the property converted to alfalfa hay. If I had known then what I know now, I would have sown native grasses instead, but now I have to do the best with what I have.

The man whom we hired to manage the hay was to use part of the hay as payment for his services. I thought that we had a working arrangement, but he abused my trust and we had to fire him. He was supposed to cultivate the land repeatedly until all weeds were gone prior to seeding. He didn't. He ploughed it once, sowed grass and was going to sow alfalfa later. When the weeds came up with the grass, he had the entirefield sprayed with broadleaf herbicide prior to sowing the alfalfa. He did not expect me ever to find out, but as luck would have it, I saw it.

I could no longer trust anyone and had to rely on myself to do what needed to be done. I simply left the hay unharvested, and in a few years, the decomposing hay enriched the soil.

In the meantime, I have been planting trees in the hayfield. I just had to find trees which are free for the taking.

Free Sources of Trees

Here are the sources of free trees which are available to Manitobans, and I am sure that you will be able to find similar ones in your own area. Before you go ahead and follow my example, make sure that you know the laws in your corner of the world. You don't want to be arrested for theft.
1. Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA)
   Canadian Prairie farmers receive free tree seedlings from the PFRS station in Indian Head, Saskatchewan. We order them through our agriculture rep in autumn and pick them up in the spring. We only pay a minimal amount for the shipping of the bundles of bare-rooted seedlings.
2. Trees in Ditches
   Canadians are allowed to dig up any plants which have seeded themselves in public ditches. Just make sure that you are not trespassing on private property or stealing from provincial or federal parks. There you are not even allowed to pick a flower, and some Americans have been known to get arrested for ignoring this rule.
3. Trees from Cuttings Water-loving hardwoods can be propagated simply by sticking a twig into the soil where the ground is flooded.
4. Trees in Gardens
   Unwanted plants which have seeded themselves in your own or your neighbors’ garden can easily be transplanted. I dig them up in the spring, nurse them in pots all summer long, and plant them in autumn after the roots have filled the pots. Trees with extremely deep roots, however, refuse transplantation. Oak and hawthorne were among my failed experiments.
5. Trees Started in Pots
   Trees with deep roots will die when transplanted. Those I start from seed in pots and transplant them onto the field when they are large enough to withstand the rigors of a harsh climate and of rodent attacks.

© Traute Klein, biogardener