Arbor Day Ambitions: How An Agriculture Startup Plans To Populate The World With Trees

Carrie McClain, founder of Little Saps, surrounded by her seedlings.

Little Saps

Artificial intelligence, blockchain, and trees. What do all three of these things have in common? They are vital pieces of our future and also where innovation is happening right now.

Carrie McClain, the founder of Little Saps, proves that innovation can be found in unexpected places -- in her case, the Fraser Fir trees populating the lush, rolling hills of Appalachia.  

But let's start from the beginning. McClain comes from a family of entrepreneurs and has worked alongside her parents, John and Kathy Chefas, farmers and owners of the Christmas tree farm, Hart-T-Tree Farms, for eight years. Nestled deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Ashe County, North Carolina, their farm is on fertile land perfect for growing Fraser Firs, the sturdiest of Christmas trees and most capable of holding decadent decorations.

The Chefas family farm, Hart-T-Tree Farm in Grassy Creek, North Carolina.

Little Saps

Agriculture's oversupply and scarcity cycle

Having farmed for over 40 years, the Chefas' had weathered through many cycles of oversupply and scarcity. But this last period of scarcity was different.

This time, many farmers in Appalachia opted to raise their own seedlings.  They wanted to not only secure control of their supply, but they also wanted to take advantage of the scarcity and grow to sell the seedlings as well.  With so many farmers feeling bullish about the seedlings, suddenly, there was worry that too many seedlings would trigger oversupply of trees and depress the wholesale prices - yet again.

An idea is cultivated

With this, McClain sensed an opportunity.

"I would end up at meetings of Christmas tree farmers and this worry was a central point of discussion.  I knew that we couldn't control how many seedlings everyone planted; that would take a miraculous amount of trust and coordination.  Instead, what we needed to do was expand our markets. We needed to think outside of the box and find new, alternative ways to sell our trees."

This focus on how to grow the market led to the birth of Little Saps. Little Saps offers evergreen seedlings, packed, potted, or plain, to consumers and companies alike, so they can mark special occasions, celebrate holidays, or quite simply, brighten someone's day.

Little Saps at an event at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, North Carolina.

Little Saps

As McClain said, I love the idea of sharing something that has roots. Something that will endure for years and years. Most especially, I love that by sharing our Little Saps with others, we are helping make the world a greener place. We are helping to ensure a clean future for our children and grandchildren. My family and I recently visited the polar bear exhibit at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro. The exhibit teaches visitors how to be good stewards of the environment. The first suggestion - plant a tree!

McClain pays particular attention to Little Saps' packaging and design, wanting to convey the "elegance, strength, wisdom, beauty and longevity" that many associate with trees. Her goals are far-reaching, just like the trees she hopes to grow. She wants to create an alternative revenue model that will help diversify the farm and support it through the inevitable cycles of plenty and scarcity. McClain believes that in differentiating from other family farms, she will help lift up and unlock greater opportunity for her fellow farmers.

A commitment to sustainable innovation

Moreover,

McClain and Little Saps' mission and vision are ambitious. And frankly, many entrepreneurs could learn from her patient persistence to build a new business (while still an active part of the management of her family's farm) centered around sustainable products that are harmonious with the local economy and environment.

A Little Sap as a wedding favor.

Little Saps

On this Arbor Day and at the end of Earth Week, it only seems fitting to highlight an entrepreneur who wants to put back into Mother Earth instead of taking away and marries profit with purpose.

McClain provides a compelling pitch for buying and gifting sustainably. Who's in?

‘Volcano mulching,’ how to plant a tree, and when to pull the planting trigger: This Weekend in the Garden

Tips for tree-planting

Today is Arbor Day, that day devoted to encouraging people to planting a new tree or three.

You might run into a variety of differing advice on exactly how to do this deed correctly. It doesn’t help that the recommended best practices have changed over the years.

Here’s a rundown on how to plant a tree, according to the current generally accepted process used by pros:

1.) Loosen the soil at least three times the width of the rootball but only as deep. Digging deep holes leads to soil settling, which ends up sinking the tree lower than it should be after planting.

2.) If the soil is poor, improve it with a little compost… but no more than 10 to 20 percent of the total volume. Don’t over-improve or the roots will circle in the “good stuff,” plus water will back up in the hole when it can’t seep out the sides as fast as it’s draining into the improved soil.

3.) Plant so the root flare (the widened base of the trunk just above the roots) is above grade.

4.) Fray out any circling roots before planting, and remove burlap, wire, baskets, and any other non-root items once the tree is safely situated in the hole.

5.) Don’t stake unless necessary. If you do, use wide bands â€" not wire or rope. Remove staking within one year.

6.) Cover the soil with two to three inches of bark mulch in a minimum six-foot diameter mulched area around the tree. Keep mulch two to three inches away from the trunk. No volcano mulching!

7.) Water well immediately after planting, then often enough to keep the soil consistently damp just below and all around the rootball… but never so much that it’s soggy. One good soaking every five to seven days is better than daily watering.

8.) There’s usually no need to fertilize a new or mature tree. Too much is as bad as not enough. Base your fertilizer application on what a soil test recommends.

Do-it-yourself Penn State soil test kits are available for $9-$10 from county Extension offices, many garden centers, and online at Penn State’s soil test lab.

9.) Other than removing broken branches, don’t prune before or right after planting. Begin your pruning to shape the tree the second year.

Don't pack mulch high up on tree trunks. This kind of "volcano mulching" can harm or kill trees.

Mulch that can kill

A little mulch is a good thing. Too much, though, can stunt plant growth and even kill large, mature trees.

Mulch is anything that covers the soil, but in the central-Pennsylvania landscape, it’s usually a layer of shredded hardwood (ground-up trees and branches), bark, or wood chips.

In moderate amounts, mulch chokes out weeds, slows moisture loss from the soil, moderates swings in soil temperature, and adds nutrition and organic matter to the soil as it breaks down.

A total layer of two to three inches is fine around trees, shrubs, and evergreens. One or two inches is enough around flowers.

Adding more and more mulch every year causes a buildup that can hinder oxygen exchange in the soil, causing roots to suffocate. So if you already have the suggested amounts in place, don’t add more.

If you have a little too much, cultivate the existing layer to break up matting and allow improved air exchange and drainage.

If you have a lot too much, you’re better off removing it down to an optimal layer. Use the excess in an area that’s short on mulch, use it to expand mulched areas around your trees, compost it, or pile up it for use later.

One of the worst practices is packing mulch up on the trunks of trees. It’s usually done by over-zealous weed-warriors or possibly by people who think the extra mulch helps support the tree or makes it look nice.

Compounding the problem is that even some landscape companies pack mulch a foot or more up tree trunks, a practice that’s called “volcano mulching” because of the shape of the result.

Volcano mulching is not only bad for suffocating roots, it encourages bark to rot. The effect is akin to burying a tree too deep and exposing a tree’s trunk and bark to conditions similar to underground â€" not to above grade where the trunk is adapted.

Packing mulch against the trunk also makes it easier for insects and rodents to feed on the trunks under cover.

If you have any volcano-mulched trees, the best thing you can do is get out there and pull it away ASAP.

All mulch should be kept a few inches back away from the bark of trees and shrubs â€" and from the stems of perennials, for that matter.

If you’re trying to save work by reducing the back-breaking job of mulching altogether, cover bare ground instead with low-growing, groundcover plants.

Most annual flowers shouldn't be planted until all danger of frost is past.

When to plant?

End of April marks the milestone of the Harrisburg area’s average last killing frost of the spring.

That means that approximately half of the time, we’re done already with frost.

If you’re a gambler, you’ll probably start to plant your summer annuals (petunias, geraniums and such) and your warm-weather vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, etc.)

Keep in mind that you might need to cover these early-planted warmth lovers in years when a late-April or early-May frost pops up.

Products such as floating row covers, frost blankets, and even old sheets can buy a few degrees of protection for the few sub-freezing, overnight hours that otherwise would kill a begonia or bell pepper.

Most people elect to wait until our all-time latest killing spring frost, which is May 11 in the Harrisburg area. Frosts have happened in late May in rural areas and in higher elevations of northern Dauphin County and beyond.

That’s why you’ll often hear gardeners using Mother’s Day as their cue to plant summer annuals and warm-weather vegetables.

A compromise is to wait until the end of April and look at the 10-day temperature forecast. If there’s nothing in the outlook even close to freezing, that would be a reasonably safe bet to plant early.

By the way, there’s no need to cover plants that are adapted to spring cold when a late-April or early-May frost occurs.

These include spring-flowering bulbs (daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, etc.); perennial flowers already blooming or poking up (salvia, sedum, daylilies, etc.); cold-hardy vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, onions, spinach, lettuce, etc.), and trees, shrubs, and evergreens that are listed as winter-hardy in our area.

Most of the Harrisburg area ranges from Zone 6A to Zone 7A, indicating winter low temperatures bottoming out at minus-10 to 5 degrees above zero.

The Ebony Project: Taylor Guitars Plants Trees in Cameroon to Preserve This Vulnerable Tonewood

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Taylor Guitars has long been a leader in responsible guitar making, working with domestic and international suppliers to ensure that its instruments are made of sustainable tonewoods. In 2011, Taylor ...

How to best manage aphid outbreaks on fruit trees (and other plants)

Marisa Y. Thompson Southwest Yard and Garden

Published 5:54 AM EDT Apr 21, 2019

Question: What's causing our peach tree leaves to wither and curl up completely and should we also be worried about our apricot trees nearby?

Lorraine J., Los Lunas

Answer: Looking at the sample you brought in, the leaf curl on your peach tree branches is pretty extreme, and when I turned over and uncurled the leaves I found a ton of chubby green aphids hiding underneath. Some of the leaves, especially at the tips, are stunted and probably won't fully expand after so much damage. Another aphid clue is the shiny, sticky coating on many of the leaves. The sticky shellac is called honeydew, which is a darling name for aphid excretion or — pardon my French — poo.

In my first New Mexico summer I was walking down Lomas Avenue in Albuquerque on the sidewalk in front of UNM Hospital, just minding my own business, when I felt a lovely mist falling from the sky. It was brief, so I turned around to experience it again. I found that this fine mist was coming from a street tree that I now know to be a desert willow. I remember standing under the desert willow for a while, enjoying the evaporative cooling effect, amazed at how a desert plant could be so miraculous and kind. But that mist wasn't water. It wasn't until I took my first entomology class years later that I learned the truth about honeydew.

Aphids of various species can be expected each year on fruit trees and other landscape trees, shrubs, flowers and vines. These guys suck fluids from leaves and excrete a sugary liquid that attracts ants and gets sticky and shiny as it coats the foliage.

Another effect of the aphid's piercing-sucking mouthparts and eating habits is that the leaf can get deformed and start to curl up partially or entirely — especially on stone fruit trees like peaches, apricots, cherries, etc. Here's where the task of controlling aphid populations gets tricky because they're protected inside the curled up leaves.

For home gardeners, I recommend keeping an eye out for shiny leaves, chubby aphids, and curled, deformed leaves throughout the season on all landscape plants. When you find some, don't worry about eradicating the entire population — that's not even possible. Just use a hose sprayer to power wash the visible aphid clusters off the plants' leaves, buds, and stems with water. Once washed off, aphids tend to be disoriented and slow at getting all the way back up to the tender, succulent new growth that they love.

Also keep an eye out for beneficial insects such as praying mantises, green lacewings, and ladybugs (more formally known as lady beetles). Ladybugs in the larval stage are weird, stout, black alligator-looking wigglers, often, but not always, with red markings. Insecticides might hurt the beneficial insect population before they've had a chance to work their magic. For photos of these beneficials, visit https://nmsudesertblooms.blogspot.com/.

Within an hour of examining Lorraine's aphid-infested branch, I got a call from Otero County Extension Agent Sid Gordon to give me a heads up that two separate peach tree branch samples had been submitted to their County Extension Office in Alamogordo, both covered in aphids and one with lady beetle larvae, that very morning. So if you haven't noticed signs of aphids yet, step outside, take another look, and keep vigilant.

I shared photos of the peach tree stem with NMSU Extension Entomology Specialist and NMDA State Entomologist Dr. Carol Sutherland. She pointed out the tiny white flaky bits as empty exoskeletons leftover after some aphids molted. "As the weather warms, the blackish aphids on stone fruits will likely fly away to alternate summer hosts. Green peach aphids will remain on peach trees all year long. As populations get large, winged aphids may be produced, but the tree will likely keep a residual aphid population. Natural enemies should have a field day on these things. Whether or not that will be good enough to control the pests to an acceptable level is undetermined, but possible." For more aphid info, check out the NMSU Extension Guide "Aphids and Their Relatives."

Luckily, this early in the season, foliar damage can be completely overcome by another flush of growth and even badly defoliated fruit trees can rebound in just a few weeks. Give the tree a leg-up by watering the entire root zone sufficiently to a depth of about 18 to 24 inches, depending on the size, and be sure to let the soil dry between irrigations.

For more gardening information, including decades of archived Southwest Yard & Garden columns, visit the NMSU Extension Horticulture page (http://desertblooms.nmsu.edu/), follow us on social media (@NMDesertBlooms), or contact your County Extension office (https://aces.nmsu.edu/county).

Marisa Thompson, PhD, is the Extension Horticulture Specialist for New Mexico State University and is based at the Agricultural Science Center at Los Lunas.

More Southwest Yard and Garden:

When is it safe to take houseplants outside?

What fruit trees are recommended for my area?

Late frost? Here are some tips for protecting fruit trees

Learn how to plant trees for Spring

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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - Spring has sprung which means its time to plant new trees.

Friends of Grand Rapids Parks and Habitat for Humanity of Kent County are teaming up to teach West Michigan how important it is to plant new trees each and every season.

Learn all the skills you need to know in their Neighborhood Forester Tree Planting Class in order to help keep the environment healthy and growing.

This whole class leads up to the 4th annual Mayor's Greening Initiative where numerous communities members will soon be planting 300 trees in the Roosevelt Park neighborhood.

Travelers Commits to Plant up to One Million Trees to Aid Reforestation Efforts

HARTFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE: TRV) today announced a new initiative with American Forests, the country's oldest nonprofit conservation group, to plant a tree when personal lines customers choose paperless billing. The company will plant up to one million trees through April 2020, supporting the reforestation of endangered ecosystems in several states.

"Our commitment to plant trees with American Forests will hopefully encourage more policyholders to go digital," said Michael Klein, Executive Vice President and President of Personal Insurance at Travelers. "Paperless billing provides an added level of convenience for customers, while helping minimize our environmental impact through a reduction in paper consumption and our overall carbon footprint."

"We are thrilled to work with Travelers on this ambitious commitment, which is one of American Forests' largest corporate initiatives ever," said Jad Daley, President and CEO of American Forests. "Travelers' generous support will enable us to replant forests across some of America's most important natural landscapes, restoring their capacity to collect and filter drinking water, provide wildlife habitat and naturally capture carbon emissions to slow climate change."

This partnership exemplifies how Travelers integrates climate-related issues into its business. Other examples include:

Monitoring, assessing and responding to the risks posed by changing climate conditions in order to provide products and services that both help our customers mitigate those risks and meet our long-term financial objectives.

Monitoring opportunities presented by evolving climate conditions and more "environmentally friendly" trends in order to provide insurance products and services that address our customers' needs, such as green building coverages and discounts for fortified or LEED certified homes and hybrid/electric vehicles.

Providing guidance to customers, including through the company's network of 600+ Risk Control consultants, to help customers prepare for natural disasters and mitigate the risks associated with changing climate conditions and/or with "green" products or systems they may have installed.

Sponsoring the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS), the BuildStrong Coalition, Habitat for Humanity® and the Wharton Risk Center to promote stronger building codes and more resilient communities and to influence industry standards and best practices; among other things, Travelers partners with Habitat for Humanity® and IBHS to build affordable, IBHS FORTIFIED™ homes in coastal areas.

Creating the annual Excellence in Community Resilience Award of $100,000 to recognize organizations that demonstrate leadership in addressing disaster preparedness and community resiliency.

Continuously analyzing the company's impacts on the environment and looking for cost-effective ways to minimizing those impacts, such as by ensuring that all Travelers-owned campuses are ENERGY STAR® certified and undergo an annual recertification process, and setting a goal to reduce the company's absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 40% by 2020, based on a 2011 base year; as of the end of 2017, we have achieved 88% of this goal.

For more information and to sign up for paperless billing, visit travelers.com/paperless.

About TravelersThe Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE: TRV) is a leading provider of property casualty insurance for auto, home and business. A component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Travelers has approximately 30,000 employees and generated revenues of approximately $30 billion in 2018. For more information, visit www.travelers.com.

How to plant by the numbers

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Understanding numbers usually applies to the high finance world of Wall Street or maybe just our checkbook. We seldom think of numbers in relationship to landscape. The numbers may be the eye appeal that is worthy of second glances from passersby.

The standard rule of thumb has always been planting in threes and fives. Maybe there are ways to successfully incorporate other numbers. Understanding the numbers and how to use them can give you confidence. It gives you the freedom to fudge that long-standing rule and satisfy your own taste in design.

• One plant can be either a specimen plant or a unifying plant. I planted blue lyme grass in front of a giant boulder and close to a blue spruce. The grass has a bluish tint that echoes the blue of the blue spruce. In this case it acts as a specimen plant and a unifier.

• Two plants signal formality, and are usually used to mark both sides of an entrance or passageway. Formality is not my style. I would feel like I am being watched, checking I always walk a straight line.

• Three plants are a charm as long as they aren’t used in a straight row like soldiers at attention. That would be dull. If you have enough space, group them in an equilateral triangle. This arrangement looks particularly good with mounding or vertical plants. Be sure to leave space between plants, especially if there are three different kinds. Another arrangement could use two plants with a garden ornament or a birdbath to count as the third item in the set of three.

• Four plants can be divided in various ways. Avoid planting two and two on the sides of an entry. That planting often feels off-kilter, always calling for more, making it three and three.

You could plant one plant in each quadrant of a circle or square, either planting four distinct specimens or repeating the same plant. A planting that also works well would be dividing the four plants into three plants plus one. Position three plants on one side of a path and one on the other. This planting could be especially effective if an evergreen is used as the one plant because of its strong visual weight.

• Five is the number most often used. A classic example of 5 is to set up two parallel rows with three in one row and two in the other. This works best in a rectangular bed. Positioning two plants on one side of a path and three on the other does not work but having four plants balanced with the fifth plant separate feels right.

• Six is two sets of three. This works best when broken into two groups. Either duplicate the arrangement of threes in a staggered row or in a triangle or position them to fill a corner. Dividing into groups of two, or a line of six, doesn’t command much attention.

Now, let the fun begin by drawing out the six possibilities. Roughly sketch out either a straight or meandering path, whichever best suits your landscape. Just use circles to indicate your plantings and let your eyes lead you to a planting what best suits your personality.

When you are working on a plan near an entryway, avoid the following five plant traits:

• Plants that have thorns that can snag clothes and skin.

• Plants that attract bees. Many plants attract a few bees, but try to keep bee magnet plants several feet away from your walkway or patio where you won’t brush against them.

• Plants that sprawl. Plants that spread and sprawl should be planted far enough from a sidewalk that they don’t fall into your path and present a tripping hazard.

• Plants that have branches at face height. Either prune branches high enough to be out of the way, or keep these plants far enough back that at their mature size they won’t hang out over the path. I had to do some pruning on an apple tree after I observed the lawn service man having to duck under the branches to mow.

• Plants that outgrow their space too quickly. If you need to prune a shrub severely every year to keep it within bounds, take it out and replant with a different variety.

â€" Reporter: douville@bendbroadband.com

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