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Say money was not an issue and you had a half acre or so, could you theorhetically plant 30-50 trees simultaneously in close proximity to one another to create an "insta-woods?" I've always been curious about this. Thanks
Absolutely. As a matter of fact that is one of the solutions farmers started using to slow down top soil erosion after the huge dust storms during the early part of the 20th century. Except large tracts of thousands of trees would be planted between fields creating wind breaks.
Blue Eucalyptus was used extensively here in California during the 20th century for just such a purpose. While 30-50 trees will not give you a forest it will definately create an quick wooded area for privacy, erosion control, animal sanctuary etc...
I would recommend drip irrigation until the trees get established. Go for trees that are indigenous to your area or uniquely suited for that particular environment. This will help ensure that they can be taken off of irrigation watering at some point.
Mix them up so that you have an instant woods which will then be improved as the slower growing trees catch up. I had a perimeter I wanted to block off immediately and planted 12-14 foot arborvitae touching each other in a line.
They would be a good starting point along with silver maple. then put some good trees in so the silver maple can be cut down with they reach about 20 feet (which won't take long). I'd put in a lot of nice evergreens like Blue Spruce and Norwegian Pine. That sort of thing.
Then in 10 years, you can thin things out.
If money isn't the limiting factor, trees as large as 6-8 inches in caliper are often moved nowadays. Back many years ago when I worked for a nursery / landscaping company, the largest tree I helped move was about 30 feet tall. We had to get a larger track loader to get it out of the ground because the ball was so large. It pretty much filled the flatbed trailer. Some of those will pretty much give you an instant woods.
On a half-acre??? Roughly 105' x 210'? That wouldn't be a "woods" by my definition. Copse of trees is more like it.
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