Reforestation - Solutions for Common Problems

Remediation Project design and funding

Grants, Partnerships, In-Kind Donations

Grants usually come with more constraints and oversite

• you may have to have the money up front to purchase and implement your project, grants are usually reimbursements of your investment. Remember you can always use something like a 401k loan to initially fund your project. It is nice to have the assets from grants such as caging and tools.

• you will have to have a certain percentage of the requested grant value as a monetary match toward the grant, volunteer hours count at going labor rate toward that money match constraint

• you will need to keep notes on volunteers, to show who volunteered to get that volunteer match labor rate

• keep notes on you administration time as it also counts toward labor value added to the match

Partnerships

• Partnering organizations may offer materials to help execute their initiative normally gifting the materials to nonprofits and charities so you do not have to pay for the materials. 

• Partnerships make it so nonprofits do not have to do all the grant paperwork

• Reach out to your local County / City / Township / or Borough's Public Works they may be willing to help with heavy machinery making your project that much easier 

County Conservation Districts

• Conservation Districts can help you with figuring out property ownership

• help find available grants that fit your project

• help find collaborate with municipalities and other nonprofits

• instruct on how to implement best management practices 

In-Kind Donations to nonprofits

Many large companies offer In-Kind donations of services where they can offer your nonprofit a services for free or at a large discount. It is worth pursuing In-kind donations.

• Google for nonprofits

  • Domain Name

  • Google Workspace

  • Google hosted Website

  • $10,000 a month toward Google ads

  • Youtube Nonprofit

  • Google Maps

Finding Volunteers

There are many different websites that help find volunteers near you.

1. Eventbrite.com has a great free version which allow you to do almost everything except:

   • Events over 250 tickets

   • Emailing your volunteers directly

2. VolunteerMatch.com doesn't allow volunteers to sign up for a specify date/time

   • You will get an email that someone is interested and you will have to then figure out when they want to volunteer

   • You could send then a link to Eventbrite where they can sign up for a specific date/time

   • Make your Volunteer match project a summary of your initiatives

3. Reach out to local Restorative Justice groups (Court Ordered Community Service) 

4. Reach out to other local volunteer groups they may be looking for different opportunities 

Site Preparation

Tree, Deer Protection procurement

Container trees

• • Best bang for the buck is pioneer species container saplings which come in plastic packs of 25 or 36 (dependent on the nursery). @ $125 for 25 saplings. (Pioneer species such as River Birch and Tulip Poplar grow very rapidly and establish an area quickly)

  • For larger bang for the buck trees #2 gallon container trees around 3-4 ft, you may have to unfurl the roots but are larger at a good price at a nursery 

  • Container Saplings will need to be picked up or have to pay the delivery charge in a box truck

Bareroot trees

• • Bareroot save you the drive of the tree pickup and/or the cost of the delivery of the container trees

Deer Protection

• Tubex - Circular tube one inside the other so that some have less diameter than others

• Plantra - comes flatten and doesn't easily conform into a circle

• Oak Stake - Oak do not last past 3 years, Deer with rub and break your stakes where you will constantly need to reset a shorter stake 

• Plantra fiberglass stake - if the ground is rocky the fiberglass may shatter when it hits a rock

  • fiberglass stakes bend with a deer rubbing instead of breaking like Oak

  • fiber glass also bends with the strong current of a flooded stream for riparian buffers 

Riparian Buffer / Erosion control planting different that planting a tree

• If you dig hole like a normal tree planting, if the area floods regularly your tree or shrub will be instantly eroded where you disturbed the soil taking you plant with the current

• Tubex creates an eddie current directly over your plant making the problem worse

  1. use live stakes and just jam them in a predrilled hole without digging

  2. use the shovel slit technique and put your tree roots in a slit rather that disturbing the soil

  3. Fiber glass stakes work well bending with the current

Wood Chips

1. Don't pay for wood chips 

   • Use Chipdrop.com - this is a service which helps Landscapers get rid of chipped trees for $20 fee.

     • Select Gardener as a person who would like to request 20 yards of wood chips

     • For Tree plantings, ask to not receive Black Walnut and eucalyptus wood chips because they have allelopathy which will, kill, prevent or stunt the growth of your trees

     • If you are asking to get a chip drop at a location you do not own, use the support email and provide the GPS coordinates and the Land Owner Agreement to provide you have permission to get chips at that location.

   • Ask the local Municipality, County, or Park you are working in for free wood chips

2. Wood Chips will give you a better mortality rate for your trees and shrubs to survive

   • 3-3-3 rule (3 feet diameter, 3 inches from the Trunk, no more than 3 inches high)

   • Holds in the moisture - so it doesn't just evaporate instantly, difference between your tree surviving the first 2 seasons when it doesn't rain for a week and half

   • Provides nutrients to your tree/ Shrub

   • Helps keep weeds from growing and taking the moisture from the soil

Tree Spacing

1. Do you have a maintenance person mowing the tree planting?

   • Find out the normal mower width and make sure you space your trees with enough room for them to mow between.

   • In this circumstance, space the trees out so that they can develop without competition research each species canopy Diameter/Radius. 

2. Do you have current invasive you are trying to prevent from coming back?

   • You could plant trees closer together to develop a canopy faster to help prevent invasive growth by blocking sunlight.

   • Below is some incite into the rate and reach of tree species so that you do not have to tend your reforestation project for decades.

3. Tree Species Dependent and goal dependent:

Dense forest with a connected canopy 

Quickest to fill an area with connected tree canopy

3. • River Birch can grow very rapidly, colonize, and develop a 15 foot radius canopy in 5 years (you can plant them farther apart and still develop a connecting canopy fairly quickly you can plant them, 25-30 ft spacing, if planted next to other river birch)

   • Tulip Poplar grows very rapidly and has a pretty nice horizontal radius (17-20 ft spacing)

   • Pin Oaks - Grow faster than Swamp White Oak, and do reach horizontally (15-17 ft spacing) 

Possible but doesn't reach horizontally as fast

3. • Sycamore - grow rapidly but taller first and do not (10-15 ft)

Grow Differently, biodiversity

3. • Swamp White Oak  - (Full Sun) grow slower and can persist in the understory, they will not develop a canopy quickly, insects love these  

   • Sweet Bay Magnolia - (Full Sun to partial Shade) Many Trunks slower growth doesn't reach horizontally to develop canopy, persistent succulent type leaves, smells great, leaves stay through out winter most of the time.

Establishing A Reforestation remediation project (year 1-2)

Watering, Wood Chips

• Have wood chips to hold in moisture

• Water Barrels - Water when it doesn't rain in 10 days for the first 2 seasons when it needs it (95% mortality)

Weeding

• Make sure to weed whack/ Remove weeds first week in July. (There will be rapid growth)

• Tend tubex / Staking - Deer will rub and brake stakes, monitor your project every 2 weeks for the first 2 years

• Tend Caging it will come loose due to temperature changes

• Look for Invasive vines on our trees, if you have oriental bitter sweet of honey suckle vine, it takes forever to remove from cages just cut it at the base of the cage and pull up the root, leave the vine on the cage until you plan on moving it. Do not move cages with invasives on them so they do not spread.

• Remove weeds from inside the tubex

Monitoring

• Notice trends, look for voles, disease, or unwanted Calary Pear and Honey Locust that birds pooped in your tubex

• You could take action on voles by putting something around the trees. (Protect Black gums with Tubex at the base if they are in cages)