Frugal Trees

We lost some trees in an ice storm years ago and we kept saying that we needed to replace those trees.  Finally about 4 years ago we purchased two trees from a local nursery to replace 2 of the 3 trees that we lost.  The nursery employees came out and planted the trees in the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the street.

Those trees cost around $75 each and the nursery planted the trees for free.  The trees were around 8 feet tall when we bought them and both of them are now around 25 feet tall.

We would like to plant more trees around our property but cannot afford the price of a tree from a nursery.  Since we now have 5 tall shade trees, we can take our time with others growing.  So we have been taking any saplings that we see growing in our yard, taking the best looking ones, and planting them where we would eventually like to have a mature tree.

Now we don't plant these trees haphazardly around the yard.  Because we have planted trees before, we have had the utility companies come out and mark where the utility lines/pipes are.  We know not to plant near these lines or pipes.

My husband planted this little sapling two years ago on a lark.  It was about 6 inches tall. 

Here it is today and it has several years to go.  Two years ago we planted this little redbud tree from a sapling that grew from our own red bud tree.  It is a fast growing tree and we love the potential shade and beauty it will bring to our yard.

Our little red bud tree we planted from a little sapling growing near the mature red bud tree.

Now we are looking around for a sapling to put out in the front of our yard that will give us shade in the future.  It's been fun to transplant what we find in our yard to other areas of the yard. 

I know there are organizations that will give us saplings (free) or trees for a modest fee ($25 each), but we have found that we enjoy taking what we already have growing in our yard and transplanting it.