25 Years Later: A Forest Aug 2026
This morning I went for a walk in a forest. Not particularly adventurous or unusual. What was unusual was that we planted it.
With my boys before the planting.
More than 25 years ago, this land wasn't forest at all. It was 16 acres of degraded unused farm land. Rather than waiting for nature to eventually reclaim the fields, we ordered 750 tiny seedlings from the New York State DEC during their annual spring sale. Comically small, roughly a foot and about a dollar apiece.
And then we had to figure out how to get 750 trees into the ground.
On a cool and drizzly day Serge turned planting day into a factory operation. Our kids, friends, grandparents all joined in. An ATV pulled a trailer loaded with seedlings, buckets, water, compost and tools. We created an assembly line. One person drilled holes with a bulb auger attached to a battery-powered drill. Another handled the soil amendments. Someone dropped in the seedling. Someone else filled the hole and watered.
Then we moved to the next one. And the next. And the next. Hundreds of times.
At the end of the day, it didn't look much like a forest. The weeds in the fields were taller than the trees.
Then We Kept Planting
Over the years we probably added another 250 trees. We planted an orchard of apples, pears, peaches and cherries. A nut grove with chestnuts, hazelnuts, English walnuts and black walnuts. We added maples, oaks and other trees wherever we thought they belonged.
Some survived. Some didn't.
Then time went by. The little evergreens became trees. The trees became stands of woodland. Wild plants volunteered and filled the spaces between them. Wild roses, buckthorn, blackberry. Birds and animals moved in. Nature took over the project.
Below are aerial photos from 2006, 2018, and 2024.
Walking Through It Now
This morning I followed the trails Serge recently mowed through the forest we planted in our back acreage. Goldenrod towered beside the path. The orchard was heavy with fruit. Grapes were ripening on old vines. Mature evergreens created dark little rooms beneath their branches.
I was walking beneath trees that began as twelve-inch seedlings I once carried in a bucket. Strange and wonderful - I remember the work of planting them. When you plant a tiny tree, intellectually you know it may someday be forty or fifty feet tall. But that's very different from standing underneath it decades later.
Twenty-five years ago, we planted a forest. This morning, I got to walk through it. Two parts of the same very long adventure.
Want to create a forest of your own? Explore the Plant a Forest adventure in the Adventure Library.
