Hardy Fruit Tree Nursery
5094 route 125 J0K 1S0 Rawdon, QC, Canada

What would you do with 50 nut trees? We have two packages of downgraded trees to give away to a worthy project! Simply share this post and write a comment telling us how you will use these trees to make your world a better world! We want to hear from any and all kinds of projects, whether personal, community-driven, large or small scale. The contest will end on April 15th at 6pm when we will choose the project we think will make the best use of these trees. About the packages... of trees: these packages of 50 shagbark hickory have been downgraded for the most part because they are too small, their trunk measures less than 6 inches tall and their head is often crooked. Sometimes, a few of the trees in the package may have a few damaged roots. They are healthy, however, and we are not concerned about them growing back well. About the Shagbark Hickory The nut: Its delicious nut is somewhat similar to a pecan, which is not hardy enough to grow here. All our Hickory trees have been grown in zone 4. The Shagbark Hickory we sell can survive in zone 3, but will only have time to mature its nuts in zone 4 and warmer. The tree: The Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata) is native to Canada. Rare in numbers, its hard and dense wood was used to make tool handles and furniture. It was also a favorite as woodfuel as its heat has high value and is long-lasting. It is also extensively used for smoking. Read the full description here: http://hardyfruittrees.ca//shagbark-hickory-carya-ovata-a-

Spring is at our doors, and nature is waking up! It's surely the right time to think about planting trees, and in-keeping with the season, we are receiving a huge number of queries regarding our availability of fruit trees. We do still have plenty of availability on several items, including: Plum trees: Canada Plum and Seedling plum trees from our orchard - find them here: http://hardyfruittrees.ca/catalog/plum-tree... Nut trees: Butternut; Hybrid Hazelnut (available here: http://hardyfruittrees.ca/catalog/nut-tree) Other: Bur Oak; Swamp white oak; (Read about them here: http://hardyfruittrees.ca///oaks-collection-at-45-discount) Basket Willow; Weeping willow Available here: http://hardyfruittrees.ca/catalog/permaculture Discounted Packages: Red Oaks; Seedling Plum; Shagbark Hickory ; Butternut seedling - find them here: http://hardyfruittrees.ca/catalog/package-deals A discounted price applies to some of these when you buy ten or more. As usual, you can ask to have the trees shipped to you (between the 3rd and 25th of May, shipped on Mondays) or come to pick them up at the nursery if you live nearby. Apart from these and a few others, we are unfortunately already sold out of most of our trees. While it makes us very happy to witness increased interest in tree-planting and self-sufficiency since last spring, we remain a relatively small operation and have a hard time keeping up with the increased demand! Starting with this coming season, we are also making some changes to our organisation, and we will ship trees only in spring. So there will be no shipments in October 2021, and the trees for shipping in spring 2022 will be available to order in January 2022. We thank you all for your patience, good will and continued support, and wish all of you the best this spring. Whatever you choose to plant, may it grow beautifully!

It’s already the time for planning our 2021 season! Are you looking to live an agricultural experience that goes beyond the norm for the 2021 season? If you would like to experience living on the land, self-sufficiency and community life, it might be your place! You don’t need to be studying to apply. We offer non-remunerated internships in which the interns are lodged and fed, and are given the chance learn about gardening, food conservation, the care of fruit trees and sel...f-sufficiency in general. Minimum stay is 3 months, and there is the possibility of a long-term internship from March until November. Contact us for more details! [email protected]

PUTTING OUR PACKAGES TO THE TEST. We know that receiving trees by mail is not the most reassuring thing in the world, particularly with the situation that we have experienced this year. We have always taken the greatest care in packaging our trees in order to make sure that they reach you in perfect condition. Our packaging method has been created with a view to withstanding every kind of imaginable mistreatment during transport, as much in regard to impacts as in regard to d...elays, and 2020 has certainly proved to us that the packages are truly resistant to every ordeal! We wanted to make a little informative video to reassure those of you who have never received trees from our nursery. And, in the spirit of having a bit of fun to finish 2020 on a somewhat humorous note, we decided to put our package to the test. The package that you see being packed in the first part of the video is then the same one that you see being put to the test in the second part. Although we thoroughly amused ourselves in the second part, know that there was no trickery and the package was well and truly intact in the end. We hope that this video will make you smile as much as it did us! (For that you should watch at least until 1: 30) We should also here say a big thank you to our director Margot Schafer and our actors ‘’The Experts’’: Arnaud Le Chatelier and Theo Germond Trudeau, without whom this would have been impossible.

***Update: All of the walnut trees found a home! Thank you!*** For those in warmer areas who don’t have snow yet, here’s an offer for you! It’s the end of the season for us, and we have a few packages of 50 black walnuts available for shipping this week! They have a good root system, but either they are crooked, are too thin for our standards, or their head is broken. ... We are only selling packages of 50. We let them go for $100 per package, and we can ship them to you if you pay for transport and handling fees. (Contact us to ask about transport fees, as it will vary depending on your location.) They need to be shipped as soon as possible, ideally today or tomorrow - so please let us know as soon as possible if you are interested! If you are a non-profit organisation or have a community project, tell us why these interest you and we will offer them to you for free. For more information about black walnut trees: http://hardyfruittrees.ca//black-walnut-juglans-nigra-an-i

Digging out saplings!

Florence and Victor were planting their plum trees today! In Quebec we have been having a late mild spell, fortunate for tree planters at this time! Are you also still planting or preparing trees for winter where you are? Feel free to share with us photos of your little arboriculturists, we would loooovve to see them!

Life at the nursery | End of packing time, getting ready for winter. Fall is always something of a race against the clock at the nursery, and the rush is just now winding down! Here’s a little glance through the keyhole at what this period looks like for us. Winding the clock back to late September as temperatures drop and the colours change around us, all eyes are on the young trees, waiting for them to lose their leaves and let us know that they are entering dormanc...y and are thus ready to be dug out and be sent to their new homes! As soon as this happens, it’s go-go-go! The first step is to dig the trees out of the ground. Then they all need to be sorted, counted, and arranged in our cold storage room before we are ready to prepare orders, which happens in several steps, from preparation to wrapping for shipment; we have some photos of the different steps below. Shipping of trees is already done for the year, and now we are working on finishing to dig them out and preparing our cold storage room with the trees for spring shipping. It’s a lot to do in a short space of time, but it is always a joy to see our trees off to their new homes! Thank you to all our customers for your trust over the years - and to anyone who is planting trees this fall, we hope planting goes well and we wish you many bountiful future harvests. These are times when many of us might feel quite in need of some of the hardiness and resilience of a zone 1 tree, so we wish you all strength of heart as well as health and safety in body. P.S. Our full inventory will be updated on our website on the 1st of December, but some of our trees are already available to order for spring shipments; visit www.hardyfruittrees.ca We are also open as always for any questions you might have: call us on 514 418 4109; or email [email protected]

How to winterize your fruit trees We get quite a few questions at this time of year about what needs to be done to prepare your fruit trees for winter. It's actually very simple, involving just two easy steps: 1. Stake your tree to prevent breakage from melting ice... 2. Put a protective spiral around your tree to protect it from rodent damage. You can see full details and learn how to avoid some common mistakes with these methods in the short video below! https://youtu.be/rvZDDQ0yH48