They're going to send them in Nov-Dec? You may as well write them off.

Well, if you have a way to keep them dormant and unfrozen over the winter, you might be able to plant them out come spring. Keeping them in pots in an unheated garage or outbuilding, using potting soil or mulch that you can keep barely moist, might keep them going to spring. Your other option would be to have your holes already dug, and put the trees in the holes at once, backfilling with the soil you dug - you might have to keep it in a bunch of 5-gal. buckets, in a garage or outbuilding, so it stays unfrozen. Water as often as the ground dried out until it froze for good, and then mulch. Either way, you MIGHT keep them alive.

As far as the listing goes:

Holly - evergreen, full sun - you need a male and a female to get berries. It can take some shade, but is slowish-growing. Mature height and width depends on the cultivar they are sending, but count on eventually getting at least 15x10', more probably 20x15'. Space at least 6', better 12' from another tree, unless you want to make a hedge with the arborvitae, when they can be 6-8' apart - further from the end arborvitae than the arborvitae from each other, as the holly will be slower growing.

Blue Spruce, 2ea - full sun to part shade, mature height 40-60', width 15-30'. Moderate growth rate. Some selected cultivars can be shorter or wider, slower or faster growing, but I imagine you will get the straight species. You can plant these reasonably close together (6-10'), and have a "grove" of 2, or have 2 specimens, planted 15-20' apart.

Lodi Apple - full sun. If there are no other apple trees in near proximity, fruit production may be low. I assume it's not grafted onto dwarfing rootstock, so assume 20-40' tall and the same wide. Plant accordingly.

Aborvitae, 3ea - Sun to part shade. Height depends on the cultivar they are sending - the native species is open in growth, grows to 40' plus, but you might get one of the smaller, tighter-growing selections. It will bronze in the winter, returning to green with spring. If you plan on these as your major winter screening, then plant them as needed to give the most coverage, about 6-8' apart.

Azalea - filtered, light shade. Height depends on the cultivar sent, as does the flower color, but assume 4-10'. You might get a deciduous one, in which case, assume it will be at the tall end of the range. Space about 6-8' from other plants, or at 4-6' if wanted as part of a tapestry hedge - not recommended unless all plants grow at about the same rate to similar heights.

Black Walnut, 2ea - Sun. Little else will happliy grow under a black walnut, although the shade is good for sitting, as slightly dappled. Don't plant next to driveways, walkways or patios, as the falling nuts are heavy, and will stain the ground, cars or cement/brick with permanent black stains. Roots are obvious and may make problems for mowers. 75-100' tall, moderate growth. Space at 20' or more from other trees, and 12-20' from each other.

Red Maple - Sun to part shade. Up to 60' x 40', depending on cultivar, fairly rapid growth. Can reseed. Good fall color. Space 12-20' apart from other plants, depending on whether wanted as a grove or a specimen.

Forsythia, 2ea - full sun. Depending on the cultivar, 6-12' tall, and wider than tall as it makes a thicket of arching suckers. Can be pruned by taking out a third of the shoots every year, in the winter. Space 3-10' apart, as a hedge, or up to 15' if specimens.

Sugar Maple - sun to part shade. Moderate growth, to 60' x 30-40'. Good fall color. It must be at least 4' in diameter before you can tap it for syrup, with only one bucket, and then only one more bucket per each extra 2 in., if I recall correctly from my VT girlhood - look it up to be sure, as too early tapping can be detrimental to the tree. Space at 20-40' from other trees, esp. if you want a specimen tree.

White Pine - full sun. Fast growth to 100' x 30'. Pyramidal in its youth, as it grows, the lower branches will die back and need to be removed. Space 20-40'.

River Birch - full sun, some afternoon shade. Fast growth to 40-60'. Branches droop, need to be limbed-up for easier passage of walking or mowers - best done in winer or summer - spring pruning can lead to dripping sap. Dappled shade. Roots can be a surface problem. Needs plenty of water, will drop leaves with drought stress. Space 12-20'.

Silver Maple - sun. Fast growing, with concommitant weak branches, to 40-100'. Open habit, dappled shade. Roots can be a surface problem, as can growing grass under it. Reseeds. Space 15-25'.

Red Oak - sun. Fast growth to 60-75', widely spreading. Open shade. Space 12-15'.

Pin Oak - sun. Moderate to rapid growth to 50-65', round-headed when mature, slender when young. Lower branches droop to the ground, and higher up ones will do the same if the tree is limbed up for walking or mowers to pass under - best left to grow as it wants. Sapce 12-25'.

White Flowering Dogwood - sun to light shade. moderate growth to 25-30' x same. Low branching. flat-topped with maturity. Space 12-20'.

Redbud - sun to part shade. Moderately fast growth to 20-30' by same, broad-spreading branches. Space 12-20'.

This same basic question has been asked and answered numerous times on this forum. You may want to do a search for Arbor Day Foundation using Gardenweb's search feature. The Tree Forum alone has over 20 entries you can read through.

For years I sent them their membership dues and got my ten free "whatevers". I have a shade house and a perfect spot to bring little whips along for a year or two before planting, and actually got most of mine to live. IOW you get what you pay for and these were freebies. But, I never ordered anything from them until the year I wanted to put in a little orchard.

The two seckle pears I ordered turned out to be BRADFORD pears. That was the first insult as I saw the fruit coming on and waited, and waited and ended up with tiny hard knobs. They got chain-sawed down and used for supports to hold my grape vines I did not order from them. All the rest of the trees, and they weren't that cheap, btw, were supposed to be full dwarf except the apricot. You pay extra for the dwarf. Ha! They are standard apple trees and needless to say ended up being entirely too closely planted considering the height and canopy they've developed. It wasn't the money I am most upset about, but the time. Wasted time waiting for them to mature and set fruit. I wish I could doze them all down and start over, but I've already wasted a few years and don't want to start over on this spot.

Also in their freebie trees, the golden rain tree ended up being a mountain ash. Geesh. I haven't renewed my membership in three years. I'm still getting membership cards and requests to renew. Good luck.

I've been a member of the Ntl Arbor Day Fdtn for many years. Only once did I opt to have them send the 10 free tree seedlings (about 2 years ago). I planted them in a nursery bed and only about half of them are still alive.

This spring I ordered 80 native tree and shrub seedlings from the NH Nursery and planted them in the same now expanded nursery bed. All but 1 survived - and the one that died was a teeny tiny extra that came in the bag.

I would highly recommend the NH Nursery - they have fantastic seedlings and their service was excellent (I called and changed my order twice) for about the same price. They only ship in the Spring.

I think it's quite odd that the NADF is shipping seedlings to New England in November or December?? Maybe if we had a mild fall and the ground's not frozen and you're planting a container plant - but that is way too late to plant small bareroot seedlings. I would consider calling and cancelling your order and checking out the NH Nursery next March.

Here is a link that might be useful: NH Nursery

I'd also highly recommend North Dakota's state nursery, Lincoln-Oakes Nursery, as well as Oikos Tree Crops in Michigan.

welcome to GWeb ....

if you try the SEARCH function for arbor day ... most likely you will not find kind things about the stock they send ....

you don't say where you are ... MA could be mass. or maine ...

first ID what zone you are in ... MASS is zone 5 or so ... planting dormant trees is done in october, when the other trees are shedding their leaves ... in maine ... its probably next week .. lol ...

so tell us where you are.. and we can tell you when they should be sent.. and planted ...

if arbor day can not send them in a timely manner.. or at the proper time in spring ... you will have losses.. and being new to gardening .. think you did something wrong ... when in fact, your supplier is the problem ...

give us a zone .. ken

I've been a member for about 3 years. What I've found is that I have to plant their little bare-root trees in 5 gal. pots and let them grow some more in order to get good survival. They are then put out after they've grown about a ft. or so in the pot. Due to the location where I plant, I only water once a week on trees I plant in the ground, that's sufficient for a tree with "5 gal. roots" but not enough for the little bare-rooted trees. My pots are all bunched together in partial shade and close to a water hydrant and get watered every other day. Of course being in the New England area this may not be as much a problem for you as it is here in Tx. As other mentioned, I've gotten very good results when ordering from the state forest service nursery, but minimum order is 50 trees.

The abbreviation for Maine is ME not MA.

ADF is one of the few places you don't have to worry about getting some nasty invasives and they seem to have a lot of named cultivars nowawadays. Bare root trees are too small for most landscaping projects but if you got the time to wait then you can plant more trees for less money and less effort.

I happen to have just received an order form and catalog from NADF. On the last page it shows shipping dates
11/01-11/26 in zones 4 and 5
11/01-12/03 in zone 6
11/05-12/10 in zone 7

Zones 2 and 3 have no fall shipping.