permaculture

[Jason Gerhardt <jasongerhardt@gmail.com>]

To add to Neil's great nursery list, I have to highly recommend St. Lawrence
Nursery.  They are in Potsdam, NY very near the Canadian border.  Of course
their climate is much wetter, but their trees are extremely hardy here at
high elevation in the Rockies and in the lowlands on the windy, dry plains.
 Their planting guide is a treasure trove of useful tips for cold clime
fruit tree raising.  They also grow their trees under organic conditions,
which I think is just as important as climate, since organic culture is like
a climate of it's own so to speak.

For the cold, dry prairie landscape as Neil said often the state forest
service will have a windbreak tree program where they sell extremely cheap
trees.  We bought 250 bareroot pea shrubs, buffaloberries, nanking cherries,
juniper, and golden currants from the Colorado State Forest Service this
year for $.75-$1.50 per tree depending on variety.

Lastly, I highly recommend starting with small bareroot trees.  Nothing will
take to a new challenging location like a young sapling size tree.  I've
seen very small trees newly planted catch up with newly planted large trees
many years older within a couple years.  Smaller stock also makes the job of
digging and irrigating much less laborious.

-- 
Jason Gerhardt
Permaculture Designer and Educator