Seedlings to replace lost trees and shrubs now available at low cost from Saratoga nursery, DEC announces

Gardeners wishing to improve their landscapes or replace trees or shrubs lost to storms may buy more than 50 varieties of low-cost seedlings from the latest annual sale through the Colonel William F. Fox Memorial Saratoga Tree Nursery, the state Department of Environmental Conservation said on Thursday.

“Planting trees provides a multitude of environmental, economic, and social benefits,” DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said in a statement, calling them a “powerful tool in the fight against climate change” because they absorb carbon dioxide.

Native plants should take priority, arborists say, because they are the ones required by struggling yet crucial pollinators, such as bees. Trees also prevent erosion, reduce heating and cooling costs, and feed and shelter wildlife, Seggos said.

The nursery has organized different selections for various areas and purposes, including $80 packets for pollinators, Long Island, and wildlife and riparian settings, the DEC says. 

The pollinator packet, for example, includes Highbrush cranberry, ninebark, silky dogwood and Virginia rose, while the Long Island one offers northern bayberry, Virginia rose and bear oak. Seedlings are at least five inches tall and from 1 to 3 years old.

Vincent Simeone, director, Planting Fields Arboretum, in Oyster Bay, singled out bayberrys, as “great near the seashore and very important for pollinators.”

“Another one that caught my eye is a plant called the Winterberry, a deciduous holly; those are extremely important for birds.”

Nina Bassuk, emeritus professor, School of Integrative Plant Science Horticulture Section, Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in Ithaca, offered a few cautions about shrubs. 

“I wouldn’t plant wild grape; it’s an invasive plant and will get on top of your trees and vine everywhere,” she said. Similar concerns apply to Highbrush cranberry. And the Bristly locust, she said, "is a very thorny, shrubbery plant I kind of like, but it’s not for everybody."

Among hardwood trees, various oaks are offered, all of which likely will thrive on Long Island, Simeone said, along with other natives, including red maples, and on a smaller scale, northern white cedars.

Some trees, however, are less suited to Long Island as they tend to lose branches in high winds, said Simeone.

“We typically order white pine, a native coniferous [species] on Long Island; a lot of people shy away from the white pine because it breaks easily in storms," he said. “We still plant it in the right place — and they get huge, you have to give them plenty of space.”
The duo frowned on poplars. “For this area, the only thing I might avoid,” he said, “is poplars as they grow very quickly but are a little bit weak-wooded.” Agreed Bassuk: “The hybrid poplar is very, very fast-growing [and] it tends to get diseases and fall apart.”

American sweetgum trees, Bussuk noted, are known for their spiky fruit that may discourage walking barefoot underneath them.    

While butternuts also may fall to disease, she said, “It may not be long-lived [but] it’s worth trying.”

The sale runs from now until May 12; schools and youth groups may apply for 50 free plants through the nursery’s school seedling program that ends March 31.

To order the seedlings by phone, call (518) 587-1120, Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. To order by mail or email, fill out the form available at https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/9395.html. Seedlings may also be picked up at the Saratoga Tree Nursery, 2369 Rt. 50 S in Saratoga Springs, about 30 miles north of Albany.