I hope to grow our forest gardens and increase access to low-tech, long-term resilient trees for basic needs. I aim to do so with an ethic of mutual benefit. This page is the portal for my tree nursery growing in Reading, PA (historic land of Lenape peoples) and Freeville, NY (unceded land of Cayuga Nation). This nursery is under construction, both as a website and as a startup nursery operating in two places – more offerings and streamlined service to come, at the speed of root growth! For a list of other ecology-centered nurseries, see Edible Acres and their community compilation.
Below is a listing of current tree offerings along with what is expected for the coming growing season. If you place an order ahead of time, I can grow many trees out for you from seedling to 1-3 years of age.
As of Fall 2022, this nursery is growing the following trees – with suggested prices for purchase and trees in bold that are more readily available to distribute:
- Hybrid hazelnut – $13 per tree, $30 for 3 trees, $180 for 25 trees. Sold bare root in moist sand, paper, or saw dust and re-used plastic, ready for multi-week cool-moist storage if needed (though best to plant or heel trees in ASAP). Individual- or 3-tree orders can be potted to grow in a container for a year for an additional $2 for each potted tree.
- American black elderberry (Sambucus nigra var. canadensis) (1yo rooted cuttings) – $8 propagated by cuttings or root fragments
- Chinese chestnut (2yo seedlings coming Spring 2023)
- Honey locust (2yo seedlings coming Spring 2023)
- River locust (2yo seedlings coming Spring 2023)
- American persimmon (1yo seedlings Spring 2023)
- Poplars (Gazi, OP-367) – $7 for one well-rooted cutting, or $5 for bundle of fresh cuttings
- Willows (various stages of propagation with increasing supply)
- Black Willow (Salix nigra)
- Black Curly Willow (Salix matsudana ‘Totuosa’) – $8
- Orange Flame Shrub Willow
- Yellow Flame Shrub Willow
- American Willow (Salix Americana)
- Purpleosier Willow (Salix Purpurea ‘Iratta’ and others) – $10
- Coarse basket willows from Vermont Willow Nursery (varieties: gmelinii, calodendron, holosericea, schwerinii, miyabeana, miyabeana Sx64) – $7 per well-rooted cutting, $5 for bundle of cuttings
- Packing Twine willow
- And more!
- Past or forthcoming
- Golden currants (1yo rooted cuttings Fall 2021)
- Paw paw bred for cold hardiness (1yo seedlings Fall 2021)
- Various walnut hybrids (black walnut, Japanese walnut, and others) Fall 2021
- Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis ‘Holmstrup’) – $7/1, $6/4, $4/10 Fall 2021
- Red oak (out of stock as of Fall 2022) – $4 per tree, $30 per 10 trees, sold bare root. Individual- or 3-tree orders can be potted in a large air-prune bucket or pot for an extra $3, enabling them to grow in a container for a year before field planting
- Bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa ‘Ashworth’)
To order: Use the Contact page to place orders for trees. I will send a follow up email for confirmation and next steps. In your order message please include:
- Species and quantity desired
- Preferred payment method, request for scaled-down price if any (e.g. for a restoration or food sovereignty project, or due to limited resources)
- Shipping, or delivery or pickup preference relative to southeast PA or central NY
- My preference is pickup or local delivery of bare root trees. I have some (limited) capacity to ship plants to most states.
- Any special requests, questions, or suggestions
You can read News and Web-log Posts about Willows Edge nursery activities by viewing all posts tagged “nursery” at my main website, Alchemecology.com.
Pricing and payment options
Prices can be adjusted per your needs. I offer low- and no-cost trees for indigenous people and for community uses. I hope you will support my efforts in ecological mutualism by paying what you can toward the suggested prices and by reciprocating Earth’s gifts.
Acceptable payment options include: cash, check, credit card via PayPal, Venmo, Etherium, or barter / an exchange of what we each have in abundance.
Tree Profiles
More profiles will be added over time. You can visit Plants For A Future (PFAF.org) or similar databases for more information, and I can provide more photos of my own planting stock upon request.
Hybrid Hazelnuts grown from seed
Found in bountiful hedges at organic student farm. Grown from seed, these trees are diverse, tough, and largely well-adapted to conditions near Ithaca NY (hardiness zone 5a, likely good in zones 4-9). Diversity offers resilience and makes these trees more suitable for home plantings; these are not great for large commercial plantings, due to differences in when nuts will be ready to harvest and how variable their shell and kernel characteristics will be. To the best of my knowledge, the mother trees of these seeds descend from Badgersett Research Farm in Minnesota (quoted below).
roast, de-skin & crush
in air prune beds
[Regarding the need for deep adaptation amid climate chaos and environmental degradation:] “In the face of despair, I say: Adapt. Why not? Humans have a bone-deep primal need to be useful to our families, our villages. Doing nothing of value kills us, fast or slow. I contend that working to find a way forward is useful. And will be satisfying. Do hazels, and/or their hybrids, have characteristics that might help them to survive in potentially semi-chaotic weather and climate? In fact, they do, and not entirely by accident. Although I originally conceived my quest for a new food crop as an answer to agricultural problems such as erosion, water degradation, and loss of biodiversity, I looked for species that were tough under multiple threats, too. It turns out some of the characteristics that hazels evolved were to cope with disturbed climates.”
– quote from Philip Rutter of Badgersett Research Farm, via https://mainegardendesign.com/neo-hybrid-hazels/
A nice article on the relationship between hazels and many generations of temperate-climate peoples: https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/blog/the-lost-forest-gardens-of-europe
Red Oak from seed
Tall and straight, gathered from bird sanctuary during a mast year. Mother trees are bountiful and these seeds had a high germination rate.
