The Good Life

Trees add immense value to a block of land, but they don’t have to cost a fortune.

How to get trees for free

There should be some wise old proverb saying the most expensive part of a tree is the hole. I can’t find one, but it is true so I will say it now.

A tree is easily made by growing a seed or planting a cutting. Nature has been reproducing itself for 3.8 billion years and propagating another tree is neither new nor difficult.

However, giving it the right components to grow and thrive, the nutrients, water and air, right climate, protection from stock or pests and competing weeds, is what takes effort.

Nature makes trees from seed. She uses the numbers game. Hundreds or thousands of seeds are produced each year for survival of the species but only one or two may ever make it to maturity.

The huge benefit of this is evolution. Each seed will vary, a little or a lot, depending on its botanical composition. The strongest one suited to those exact conditions will thrive and survive long-term. This way, the species will evolve and adapt to different or changing environments.

Mankind has only recently bred and selected trees for our own use. We want the large fruit, pretty flower or fast-growing tree and so have selected to suit. We’ve then learned to propagate it to ensure we get a tree exactly like its parent.

This doesn’t help evolution much. However, it does ensure what we grow in our lifetime produces what we want.

Even smarter, we have worked out how to combine a cutting that will replicate the fruit of its parent with the roots of another tree which has other attributes, like dwarfism so we get a smaller tree. These grafted trees don’t usually live as long but they have the benefit of bringing multiple good attributes together.

Different trees do best with different types of propagation. These are some of the easiest ones to plant on your block, and it’s all for free.