What sort of evergreens are you planting? Are they native? I replanted a clearcut a year or so ago and even with an abnormally hot summer and a dry fall I'm looking at 30%, tops.

A variety. I'm working to restore a large tract of former farmland, and so we're trying to plant whatever sticks to increase biodiversity.

If you haven't yet, you may want to hire a professional forester. At 70% loss they'd likely pay for themselves many times over and save a lot of headache.

These are seedling trees, less than a foot high. They're expected to fail at a pretty high rate. In the future I'll be updating to 2nd year trees which seem to have a better cost/survival rate.

yes, LA has a program to give away trees for planting in yards and parkways, and my read of the program is that, while it's goal is laudable, the implementation is lacking. earlier this year, a partner non-profit planted 2 trees for us and i planted an additional 2 trees that another org gave us, and i learned that it's not a set-it-and-forget-it type of endeavor. walking around my neighborhood, many of these trees, even though most are native species adapted to the environment, will end up dying because of the lack of care and the lack of education that comes with the trees. beyond enriching the soil when planting, it apparently takes ~5 years for the trees to establish themselves, and so requires constant watering for at least that amount of time.

ours sprouted quickly when first planted but then stagnated through the hottest parts of the summer. now we're entering the winter season and i'm wondering what we need to do to revitalize the soil again to help them grow in the spring.

Also, even native plants aren’t adapted to what many people consider ‘native soil’ - if there is no existing native vegetation, the soil itself is far different from what a typical seed would deal with from that same plant natively.

And when you think about it, it’s normal - you’d never end up with a giant 100% consistent group of plants in a native area anyway. You’d have variable concentrations all over the place, with some devoid of one species, others overpopulated with it, all based on suitability of the local env. and and variations in the soil, water, shade, and competing plants nearby.

As humans, we just think we can point to a spot and it should comply and grow amazingly I guess, and we get flustered if that isn’t what happens.

Also, even in nature most saplings don't make it. It's easy to forget that trees release hundreds or thousands of seeds every year and only a small handful will even germinate, and few of those will make it to maturity. Most every plant takes a quantity over quality approach. Exceptions may include stonefruit trees, but even those produce a lot of fruit, but only dozens instead of thousands.

yah, good soil is an ecosystem of living things, not an inert medium. urban soil tends to be more depleted and polluted than average, so needs even more attention to get trees to grow. i'm not really a gardener type, but i do love me some trees and shade!

In Seattle, we have a similar program. The tree comes with a donut-shaped water bag for twice weekly watering during the dry summer, and instructions for tree care for those first 5 years. The main takeaways I got were: don't bury the trunk (the top of the root system should just barely be above the dirt line) and amend the tree maybe once a year with coarse wood or bark mulch, leaving a couple inches of space around the trunk. Three years in, my tree seems to be flourishing.

that's good to hear. hopefully watering regularly and remulching will lead to big beautiful trees here as well!

A thirty percent failure rate is pretty decent for three year old seedlings when you consider the pine cone potential of the survivors.

They need insects also (some will eat the moisture, some will pollinate, spread grains, etc), diversity

> Furthermore, trees need organic material. A lot of it. A tree planted in "dirt" will be about the same size 3 years later.

As someone who has a green thumb, was fascinated of trees since a kid and is working a considerable amount of forrest partly with his own tools: It's not like that.

There are trees which fall into the category of early succession. They shy away of compost, their seeds do not even germinate in such an environment. They need bare soil.

Other trees prefer poor soil as they perform symbiosis with fungi (mykhoriza), essentially producing the type of soil they need (partly).

And then there are the trees which prefer rich soil.

The later category are trees where the lawn owner is to impatient to wait (how can I make my tree grow faster) or the aggroforrestry is dependent on highest yield in shortest growth time.

> A tree planted in "dirt" will be about the same size 3 years later. A (young) tree planted in rich compost can double in size in a year

Rapid growth is not actually good for the longevity of a tree. A tree which grows rapidly (presumably to take advantage of a resource surplus) will be structurally weaker and die at a younger age to wind, pests, etc.

So it's true that planting in compost can accelerate the tree, but there's nothing wrong with planting a tree in "dirt" from a natural perspective (assuming it doesn't outright die from pH balance or lack of water etc).