Shipping Now:

PLUG SEEDLINGS:
Balsam Fir
Black Hills Spruce
Colorado Blue Spruce
Fraser Fir
Meyer's Spruce
Norway Spruce
Red Pine
Tamarack Larch
White Cedar
White Pine
White Spruce
Plug Variety Packs

PLUG TRANSPLANTS:
Austrian Pine
Balsam Fir
Eastern Red Cedar
Meyers Spruce
Norway Spruce
Serbian Spruce
Tamarack Larch
White Cedar
Plug Transplant Variety Pack

More species, types and sizes will be available in Fall 2010 when our new crop of bare root seedlings, bare root transplants, plug seedlings and plug transplants are inspected and inventoried. Join our very unobtrusive email list to be notified of availability dates and other important info.

Shipping In
Fall 2010:

TRANSPLANTS:
Balsam Fir
Colorado Blue Spruce
Concolor Fir
Douglas Fir
Fraser Fir
Norway Spruce
White Pine
White Spruce
Transplant Variety Packs

SEEDLINGS:
Austrian Pine
Balsam Fir
Colorado Blue Spruce
Concolor Fir
Douglas Fir
Eastern Red Cedar
Fraser Fir
Norway Spruce
Serbian Spruce
White Pine
Seedling Variety Packs

Packaging
Options:

Individual Packaging
Gift Bag Packaging
Eco Friendly Packaging

Trees for windbreaks and privacy fences

Windbreaks (wind breaks, wind screens) and privacy fences (privacy screens) are popular uses for our evergreen transplants, and we often get questions about planting and installation tips and techniques. Here are a few tips to get the best out of your windscreen or privacy fence project:

Spruce, Fir and Cedar are generally better than Pines for living windscreens and privacy fences, and Black Hills Spruce [dense foliage] and Eastern Red Cedar [fast growth] are among the best. Spruce are more dense and the branches do not tend to die back on the bottom as with most Pines. However, your personal taste is just as important as any of these factors, so feel free to buy what YOU want.

Use Transplants or Jumbo Plug Seedlings

We do not recommend evergreen seedlings for this type of application unless you can provide significant care and watering during the first two years. Yes, our evergreen seedlings and plug seedlings are cheaper, but they're very small and their root systems do not reach very far down, making them highly susceptible to drought. If the ground is dry to a depth of one inch, at least half of the seedling roots are not reaching any significant water at all. Seedlings are also easily choked out by taller grasses and weeds, and can even be forgotten and cut down by your neighbor's lawnmower, or even yours (it happens!). Seedlings planted out in the open also suffer more from debilitating winterburn than larger trees. Drip irrigation and careful weed control will help significantly, but why fight Mother Nature? Evergreen transplants are generally the way to go due to their size, longer root systems and overall robust nature. Plug seedlings and jumbo plug seedlings also have advantages over bareroot seedlings simply because plugs are technically not "dug up", and therefore don't suffer the same amount of transplant shock that bareroot trees often experience when first planted.

Recommended Species

Black Hills Spruce [slow growing, but very dense growth]
Colorado Spruce [pictured at right]
Norway Spruce [fast growing]
White Spruce [highly tolerant of strong, drying winter winds]
Serbian Spruce
Meyers Spruce [grow farther south than most spruces]
Eastern Red Cedar [can grow almost anywhere, dense growth, can be trimmed aggressively]
White Cedar [can be planted closely and trimmed aggressively into a tall hedge]
Balsam Fir
Douglas Fir [fast growing]
Fraser Fir

See our evergreen tree buyer's guide for a chart of characteristics for each species, or click on any of the links at far left for even greater details about each species.

We don't recommend Tamarack Larch or Dawn Redwood simply because they are "deciduous" conifers, not "evergreen" conifers, meaning they drop their needles every fall after a spectacular show of color, thus providing no privacy or wind break during the late Fall through early Spring.

Proper Spacing

It is best to space the trees at least 8 feet apart. You can space them as close as 4 feet to get them to "close in" in just a few years. However, at this shorter spacing they'll eventually start competing for water, sunshine and nutrients. At 4 foot spacing, you'll need to cut down every other tree after 5-10 years to allow the rest to mature naturally. Alternatively, you can speed up the close in rate by planting two parallel rows of trees, one offset from the other. The "two row offset" privacy fence or windscreen will tighten up a bit faster, but without the side effects of 4 foot spacing. But hey, you could always sell or give away the ones you cut down as Christmas trees!