Whether planting just a few trees or embarking on a large-scale ecological restoration project, you will have the greatest chance of success if you choose to use saplings over containerized or balled-and-burlapped trees. To explain the many reasons why saplings are the best option, tree care expert Basil Camu returns to the podcast this week.
Basil is the “chief vision officer and wizard of things” at North Carolina-based tree care company Leaf & Limb, and he leads the nonprofit Project Pando, which gathers native seeds, propagates them and distributes the saplings for free. He also wrote the book “From Wasteland to Wonder: Easy Ways We Can Help Heal Earth in the Sub/Urban Landscape,” which he offers as a free e-book, or if you prefer, a hardcover edition available for cost of printing and shipping.
Basil Camu is an arborist and also runs the nonprofit Project Pando, which raises saplings to give away for tree-planting initiatives.
Photo Courtesy of Basil Camu
Saplings offer many upfront benefits — they are cheap, easy to plant and low maintenance — and they will grow at a faster rate than trees that were containerized or dug up then balled-and-burlapped. In a short period, saplings will not only catch up to those older trees, but surpass them. Basil also finds that working with saplings is an easy way to familiarize yourself with trees.
“Saplings are just like this fun entryway at every single level, whether you’re collecting some seeds or fixing a forest,” he says. “I just think they’re the best.”
Before proceeding with my conversation with Basil, I want to take a moment to remind you that on Wednesday, November 19, at noon Eastern, I will be co-hosting a webinar on co-existing with deer and other mammals. Nancy Lawson, the Humane Gardener, will join me for this session. The cost is $29 plus processing fees. You can learn more about “Who’s Nibbling in Your Garden?” and register at Eventbrite.com.
What Is a Sapling?
A sapling is a tree or shrub that is between 1 and 3 years old, according to Basil’s definition. They can be anywhere from pencil height to 3 feet tall at 1 year old, depending on the species. Some, like black walnut trees, are fast growers and shoot straight up, Basil notes.
A sapling is 1 to 3 years old can can be between pencil height and 3 feet tall, depending on species.
Photo Courtesy of Basil Camu
Saplings Are Easier to Work With
After a tree has grown in the ground for three years, digging it out will cause substantial root damage. If grown in a pot, a tree will be root bound by its third year.
“If you’re going to plant a containerized tree, or a balled-and-burlaped, there are so many steps you have to follow in order to excavate the root collar and detangle the roots,” Basil says. To learn how to do it properly, there is a high technical barrier, he adds.
But to transplant a sapling? It’s nowhere near as difficult or technical.
“They don’t even have a root collar at this point. So the technical expertise on planting sapling is so easy,” Basil says. “I also like the fact that they establish right away. So you know that gardening adage, ‘First year they sleep, second year they creep, third year they leap?’ Well, the saplings go straight on to leaping. There’s really no sleeping or creeping, which I love.”
Saplings are also very cheap. They may cost you only $1–$3, while an oak tree in a 15-gallon container would run about $85.
A tree in a 15-gallon container will require digging a 45-gallon hole to plant it, and a 25-gallon container means a 75-gallon hole. That’s a lot of digging.
Meanwhile, even an inexperienced planter can plant 25 saplings an hour. An experienced planter like Basil can get 40 in the ground in that time.
“It’s so easy,” he says. “You take your shovel, drive it straight in the ground, push it forward to create a little slot, and then you slot the roots in behind the back of the shovel. And then just use your foot to pat in the sides or use your hand to pat in the sides.”
Containerized trees have restricted roots and are much more expensive than saplings.
Photo Courtesy of Basil Camu
Why Plant Saplings?
The biggest challenge that tree planting advocates like Basil face is convincing people that a scrawny saplings growth will outpace the growth of a containerized tree that is larger at planting time.
“We’ve got a lot of studies and grow trials, and just getting photos from clients — I mean, we’re seeing cases where these saplings will go from pencil size to 8 feet tall in less than two years,” he says.
This is a tree that was planted less than 2 years ago. When it was planted, it was a pencil-sized 1-year-old sapling. This is a great example of how fast saplings can grow, and this one is by itself! They grow even faster in conjunction with other trees.
Photo Courtesy of Basil Camu
“We just need more education around this, and then people will get it,” Basil says.
Planting something smaller isa case of delayed gratification, he says. In a few years, that sapling will not only be as big as a containerized tree planted at the same time — it will be bigger and healthier. That’s because the sapling never had to deal with the biggest problem that containerized trees have: “And that’s the mangled root system.”
A balled-and-burlapped tree lost about 70% of its root system when it was dug up. Think of the stress that would put on a tree. Once replanted, it takes years to reestablish itself before putting on new top growth. That is, if it even survives.
“The grow methodology for most trees is like a day at the spa,” Basil says. “So they’re getting pampered with fertilizers and water every day and warm conditions. And then these nursery-grown trees get taken out into the real world, and they’re like, what is happening right now? There is no water out here. And this is why it’s a 50% mortality across the U.S. for all landscape-planted trees. It’s astronomical.”
But a sapling, on the other hand, doesn’t need to be pampered. It just needs a little bit of rain throughout the year and a deer cage or mower cage to protect it. It requires less maintenance and will be more hardy.
For mass planting projects, low-maintenance and hardy are two keys to success.
“We have so many tree planting efforts popping up all over the country,” Basil says. “… We really do need to be thinking about saplings. We can get a lot more in the ground, and they require less maintenance.”
Working with saplings avoids many of the obstacles tree-planting organizations struggle with, like teaching volunteers how to properly plant
“And then after your volunteers go through and put a thousand trees in the city, who’s going to water those trees and who’s going to prune them?” Basil points out.
He recommends planting three saplings in a tough spot where the trees won’t be maintained, because one sapling will survive. The cost of planting three rather than one is still minimal.
“Through the lens of needing to address environmental issues and help heal earth, we want to get as many native trees in the ground as possible, and we want them to live as long as possible,” Basil says. “This is, to me, the very obvious path towards that goal.”
Balled-and-burlapped trees are put through a lot of stress when they are dug and their roots are reduced by 70%.
Photo Courtesy of Basil Camu
Sourcing Native Saplings
“Most states will have a forest service that offers these trees on an annual basis,” Basil notes. “You can also buy from neighboring states.”
You can also seek out a native plants nursery in your state that offers saplings.
“The people who want saplings are often doing ecological restoration projects, so they’re kind of catering to that market anyway,” Basil says. “And the other really cool thing about these nurseries is they can often ship these saplings. So unlike the big trees that really can’t be shipped, it’s not difficult to bag up a bundle of a hundred saplings, put them in sort of a wet bag, put it in a box and ship it to you, and they’ll be just fine.”
I once received American chestnut saplings delivered wrapped in brown paper with a damp base around their roots. Once I planted them, they took off.
Your state forest service may offer an annual native tree sale.
Photo Courtesy of Basil Camu
Grow Your Own Saplings from Seed
Basil’s nonprofit, Project Pando, is designed to help budget-constrained groups that plant trees. Project Pando propagates native trees from seeds, and then gives the saplings away to groups to supply their tree-planting efforts at no cost. At any given time, Project Pando is in the process of growing 10,000 saplings for distribution to tree planting and ecological restoration efforts.
You can grow saplings too. Basil found the easiest method is using air pruning boxes. (He learned how to make them from EdibleAcres on YouTube.) These are wooden frames with a screen on the bottom. Fill the frame with a substrate. (Basil uses rotted leaves he gets for free from the City of Raleigh.) Scatter seeds on top of the substrate, optionally top the seeds with leaf mold, and saplings will grow.
Leaf mold is an effective substrate for starting tree seeds, nuts and acorns.
Photo Courtesy of Basil Camu
When the roots hit the screen and the air at the bottom, they stop growing down. They begin to grow out sideways.
“The beauty of that is when you go to take those trees out, they detangle very easily and they have just perfect root structure,” Basil said. “And they pick up all that beneficial fungi connection from the leaf mold, which is really powerful. And you get not just a nice root, but it is loaded with aggregates. I mean, it’s just like picking up a black chunk of soil because it’s got so many aggregates, which are the fungi and the bacteria attaching to the root system.”
Project Pando has grown 800 oaks in a single 2’x4’ frame using this method. The nonprofit has more than 100 air pruning boxes.
Sapling roots grown in air pruning boxes become covered in soil aggregates teeming with beneficial microbial life.
Photo Courtesy of Basil Camu
Why Native Saplings Are Rarely Found in Conventional Nurseries
It’s not easy to find native saplings for sale at a conventional commercial nursery. There are a number of reasons why.
“Part of it is the model is built on selling trees that have trademarks and plants that have trademarks because they have a higher margin,” Basil says. “The idea is, you can’t really command as high a margin on a white oak because it’s a generic nut that you can find out in the wild.”
Basil does expect this will change in the coming years as the demand for natives grows.
Plant Keystone Species
Planting keystone species — trees that have a disproportionately large benefit to their ecosystem — is an extremely effective way to accomplish ecological restoration.
In the majority of counties in the United States, oaks are the predominant keystone species, providing food and shelter to the widest variety of insects, birds and mammals.
“Oaks will grow in a lot less space than people think, too,” Basil points out. “They say ideally 1,500 to 2,000 cubic feet for an oak or a large overstory like that. But that’s a cubic measurement that goes down about two feet. So you kind of work backwards and you realize you can put an oak in a front yard. It doesn’t have to be a large front yard. And not only that, with these saplings, you could actually fill up the whole space if you wanted to.”
He says in places where you might have just planted one tree in a bed that you have to keep maintaining, you could instead fill the whole area with saplings.
Seeded air pruning boxes.
Photo Courtesy of Basil Camu
Restoration Projects Need More Available Plant Material
“There are a lot of big reforestation projects that either need to be done or have been slated to be done by the federal government or state government, and they’re running into serious issues with plant material and with people who are qualified enough to be able to find seeds from a given species,” Basil says. “These are dying abilities or practices, and we need people who can grow plant material in general, especially if we hope to reforest large tracts of land. That will be a serious bottleneck.”
Project Pando brings more people online to be able to do this work, he says. And using air pruning beds helps to quickly amass more plants using seeds of local ecotypes.
“There’s a lot of variation in a given species across counties and state lines,” Basil says. “Like a white oak here in Raleigh is just going to be super different from a white oak in New York.”
Project Pando propagates saplings from seeds collected in the wild. They can make an abundance of trees in a short time.
Photo Courtesy of Basil Camu
Make a Privacy Thicket or Pocket Forest
A privacy thicket is an alternative to a homogenous wall of hedges.
“This is a big need for lots of homeowners and businesses. They want a row of trees to create a green wall. And traditionally, the way this is done is using just one species, and you plant it in a row,” Basil says. “And that is inherently dangerous because if something hits that species — a pest — they’re all gonna die. We see this a lot with the Leyland cypress and various arborvitae.”
Using a variety of species will ensure privacy will remain intact even as one species is wiped out by a pest or disease.
“Instead of starting with these big containerized plants of the same species that you put in a row, you instead use a diversity of native shrubs,” Basil explains.
Using 10 different species is sufficient, but Basil likes to use 20 or more.
He adds: “You’ll want to prep the area first. I always like to lay down either a layer of cardboard, or we’ve actually been using brown paper recently. I found that it’s similarly effective and easier to carry around. And then add a nice layer of arborists wood chips on top, at least 6 inches. Go 8 if you want. And let that sit for a couple of months before you start.”
He also recommends marking the plants. “It’s just very helpful to know, especially in a year two or three scenario. It can sometimes get hard to tell what you planted and what blew in on the wind or something.”
Another dense planting strategy is known as the Miyawaki Method. It creates a pocket forest by densely planting saplings. It involves a degree of soil preparation that may be too challenging for certain scenarios.
Basil promotes a strategy that is less focused on soil prep and is less rigorous on maintenance. Start by laying down cardboard or paper, covering it with a layer of woodchips 6 to 8 inches deep and letting it sit for four months. Then plant a diversity of trees 2 to 3 feet apart. Then, a couple of times a growing season, pull out any competing trees or vines that are not among what you planted there.
Applied Nucleation
“There’s this new methodology that’s getting some good peer-reviewed research called applied nucleation,” Basil shares.
It starts with a dense “island” of saplings in a deforested area.
“The island grows up and begins seeding out naturally and it fills an area. So you’re not having to actually physically plant every square inch of that old forest or whatever it may have been.”
Research shows it to be quite effective, especially in terms of keeping a very high diversity of species, he adds.
Collecting seeds of local ecotypes and propagating them is a great start to ecological restoration.
Photo Courtesy of Basil Camu
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Basil Camu on harnessing the power of saplings. If you haven’t listened yet, you can do so now by scrolling to the top of the page and clicking the Play icon in the green bar under the page title.
Have you had success planting saplings? Let us know in the comments below.
Links & Resources
Some product links in this guide are affiliate links. See full disclosure below.
Episode 185: Restoring The American Chestnut: An All-Out Effort to Save This Iconic Tree
Episode 364: Easy Ways to Help Heal Earth in Suburban and Urban Landscapes
Episode 403: Winter Tree Care, with Basil Camu
Episode 410: Create a Mini-Forest with the Miyawaki Method
“From Wasteland to Wonder: Easy Ways We Can Help Heal Earth in the Sub/Urban Landscape” by Basil Camu – free ebook and $10.75 hardcover
“How Trees Can Save the World, and What We Can Do to Help” presentation by Basil Camu
“Who’s Nibbling in Your Garden?” webinar on Wednesday, November 19, from noon to 1:30 p.m. Eastern with Nancy Lawson.
Air Prune Box Deep Dive! | EdibleAcres YouTube
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