Seedlings

Every year around this time Clearwater County offers up seedlings to County residents.  You have to make an application, and be a landowner in the County in order to qualify.  The seedlings are intended as shelterbelt trees and are grown specifically for this purpose.  The seeds are collected in the area, and then grown in a nursery in British Columbia.  Then, every summer in July the seedlings are delivered to the County office in Rocky Mountain House, and can be picked up by those who ordered them.  There are both Lodgepole Pine and White Spruce seedlings available.

This is the third year in a row that I have taken part in this offering.  We have lots of spruce trees on our property, and they seed themselves, so I just ordered the Lodgepole Pines.  Pine trees generally need a fire to open their cones and shed the seeds. Obviously we don't want a fire on our property, and the pine numbers are declining.  A number of mature trees have died in the past couple of years.  Possibly there are some Mountain Pine Beetles taking their toll, but I think it is more likely that the hot dry conditions of the past couple of years, combined with our very thin topsoil layer, have contributed to this.  On most parts of our property we only have 18 to 24 inches of topsoil on top of solid bedrock.  I suspect that the topsoil layer was once thicker, and believe that it was burnt away by a forest fire at some point in the past couple of centuries.

The seedlings are very affordable, and I again got 75 of them for 25 bucks.  Unfortunately deer will eat young pines, though they don't really care for spruce.  We have resorted to installing chicken wire around most of our seedlings to keep the deer away.  We like the deer, but we like our trees too.

This year was the third time that I purchased 75 seedlings.  In the past I have also purchased some much more expensive seedlings from a nursery in Edmonton.  This included Douglas Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Bristlecone Pine and Jackpine.  I think all told we have put in close to 300 trees over the past three years.  Many of them will not survive but if even 20% make it, then we will nicely supplement the natural forest that we already have.