DNR employees at the Wilson Nursery have been busy harvesting, grading and packaging our native trees and shrubs for distribution across the state. For landowners interested in creating wildlife habitat, starting a plantation for future wood production, stabilizing an erodible bank or field or adding to the aesthetic beauty of the landscape, the Wisconsin DNR reforestation program may be able to help.

We still have white pine, red pine, silver maple, black cherry, aspen and American plum seedlings available for sale. All are well suited for the soils of Wisconsin. Contact our nursery hotline at (715) 424-3700 for up-to-date information on seedling availability and to place an order.

To determine how many seedlings we have available to sell, we sample a portion of our rows, place that data into some formulas and then estimate inventories. Sometimes we underestimate and sometimes we overestimate. Most of the time we are close. We don’t know how accurate we were until the seedlings are lifted out of the fields, graded and counted. This year, we have some species that had much healthier volumes than we anticipated.

Seedlings sold by the Wisconsin State nurseries can only be used for reforestation, wildlife habitat and windbreak and erosion control purposes and must be planted in Wisconsin. Answers to the most common questions are available on our “Frequently Asked Questions” page.

Written by Jeremiah Auer, Regeneration Specialist,  Jeremiah.Auer@wisconsin.gov, (715) 459-1999