I ordered 700 red cedar and 50 swamp white oak, and 750 various shrubs from them for this spring.
They have always been great to work with and the product I have received from them has been of very good quality. This year all was the same except the red cedars were poorly packed on top of being less than plug size that Chief River Nursery sells. The vast majority of the cedars were less than 5", roots were longer which was good but they looked dead already when I received them. The 700 were packed so tightly into 3 small duffel sized bags that it was hard to get them to be standing upright when planted as they had been bent in many directions.
In keeping a careful eye on the newly planted seedlings, I would say if I have 10 percent living cedars, I may be a bit generous.
Now on the positive side, The oaks are 100 percent so far and the shrubs are very close to that. Also I have taken pictures and voiced my concern via email and phone to the MDC. They have been very open to my issue and said to take a count of cedar that didn't make it(by Sept 1) and they will replace next spring. They did say this year's cedar were on the small side.
I'm sharing this so if anybody else had a poor order of red cedars from the MDC they can possibly get them replaced.
They have always been great to work with and the product I have received from them has been of very good quality. This year all was the same except the red cedars were poorly packed on top of being less than plug size that Chief River Nursery sells. The vast majority of the cedars were less than 5", roots were longer which was good but they looked dead already when I received them. The 700 were packed so tightly into 3 small duffel sized bags that it was hard to get them to be standing upright when planted as they had been bent in many directions.
In keeping a careful eye on the newly planted seedlings, I would say if I have 10 percent living cedars, I may be a bit generous.
Now on the positive side, The oaks are 100 percent so far and the shrubs are very close to that. Also I have taken pictures and voiced my concern via email and phone to the MDC. They have been very open to my issue and said to take a count of cedar that didn't make it(by Sept 1) and they will replace next spring. They did say this year's cedar were on the small side.
I'm sharing this so if anybody else had a poor order of red cedars from the MDC they can possibly get them replaced.