How to Start a Small Permaculture Nursery and Grow 1000s of Trees by Yourself

Recently I attended a farm forestry course with David Holmgren and Darren J. Doherty, a subject I’d like to address today. To even start a farm forestry operation, or even a permaculture orchard, you’ll need to source a huge number of trees from somewhere.

I crunched a few numbers and browsed the relevant websites: it seems that small bare-root trees will cost, on average, $20 or more, an amount that will soon add up. I realised that, even excluding overseeding and site preparation, I would need to pay around $20k/acre for my permaculture orchard.

It wasn’t until recent visit to my mentor, an experienced plant propagator, that I came upon a way to grow $1000+ worth of trees for less than $100. His perspective was: why would you buy trees and spend money when you can propagate them yourself? Growing your own rootstock and grafting is a far better idea than buying, even if you need 1,000 trees.

I was eager to pick his brain about this, and find out how other permies such as Mark Shepard, Sepp Holzer and Stephan Sobosnwiak obtain huge numbers of trees they need for their projects. From what I could gather, it seems that the best option is to grow the trees yourself and start a small home nursery for propagation.

With this in mind, let’s see what’s required to start a small-scale permaculture nursery and grow yourself 1000 trees:

1.Learn how to propagate trees and save on capital
2.Research what you want to plant to get an idea of what works in your area
3.Source the tree material so you can start a nursery
4.Set up your home nursery to start propagating trees or
5.Plant directly onsite to save time and ensure resilient tree growth

Let’s take a deeper look.

Con't @ [link to waldenlabs.com]