One week from today (Friday), the Iowa D-N-R’s State Forest Nursery in Ames will open its phone lines and website for taking seedling orders — both for this fall and next spring. Nursery manager Pat Griffin says they’re preparing now to handle what will most certainly be a deluge of requests for the tiny trees and shrubs.
If you do the math, that’s about 600-thousand seedlings that were sent out last season, though some years, it’s as many as a million. The tree varieties include 23 species of native hardwoods, along with eight evergreen species and 15 smaller trees and shrubs.
Varieties include hickory, maple and walnut as well as red oak, river birch and black cherry, and dozens more. While orders can be made starting September 1st, the seedlings won’t start shipping out until November 1st. Griffin says November is an ideal time to launch into landscaping.
Situated on 98 acres south of Highway 30 in Ames, the nursery was created by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, and has run continuously ever since. The nursery had to raise its seedling prices last season, but Griffin says it didn’t impact sales.
Prices range from 80-cents to a-dollar-20 per seedling. They’re sold in three age classifications, and range in size from 10 to 30 inches, depending on the species. Sales run through May. Orders can be placed starting September 1st at 1-800-865-2477 or online at http://nursery.iowadnr.gov/.
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