Fall Tree Harvest
Fall is a time of harvest – for trees, as well as vegetables!
This fall, the Intervale Conservation Nursery harvested around 6,000 native trees and shrubs for plantings throughout Vermont. Here are some highlights from the fall!
Tree planting in southern Vermont with the CT River Conservancy on a fresh dam removal site.
Collecting seeds from a speckled alder for next year’s propagation!
ICN staff with silky dogwoods harvested in the Intervale this fall.
Our crew planted over 200 shrubs on a berm off the side of I-91 in Brattleboro with VTrans as a protective screen for a neighborhood.
What else is new at the Nursery?
This year, we’ve been doing more and more invasive species management, removing plants like honeysuckle and knotweed throughout Vermont. In partnership with the Waitsfield Conservation Commission, we’ve been working on implementing a two year intensive invasive species management plan at the Austin Parcel in Waitsfield where we recently planted 200 trees with the help of a dozen community volunteers.
In order to protect our tasty trees from deer, we installed a new electric fence around our 8-acre growing field that’s home to 100,000 trees and shrubs. It’s important to protect the future forests of Vermont!
This year, we’re experimenting with a pre-emptive fall harvest. Instead of leaving evergreen trees in the field over the winter and risking losing some to deer pressure, we harvested about 1,000 trees that will store safely in the cooler over the winter until the spring thaw comes and they can be planted out in the wild.
As winter approaches, the Conservation Nursery starts focuses on seed collecting, sales and planning for next year! It was another incredibly successful year for ICN, thanks to help of many volunteers, amazing staff and supportive funders. Thank you to everyone who made 2018 such a tree-t!
Follow the Intervale Conservation Nursery on Facebook or Instagram to stay up-to-date on current happenings.
Funding for the Intervale Conservation Nursery in 2018 was provided by Gottesman Fund, Lake Champlain Basin Program. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Patagonia, Dealer.com, Waterwheel Foundation, Keurig Dr Pepper, and generous individual donors.