Hi Kristie,

I live in Colorado Springs and yup, trees, bushes and plants are expensive. I do have a few suggestions for you. Hardings often has coupons on their website so check there. And sign up for the newsletter - more coupons are normally attached to them.

Check out nurseries in Canon City. I think that Brady's is technically wholesale only but I have bought plenty of trees from them. And while you may have to pay for delivery, they are delivering in the Springs most days so the delivery fees aren't crushing. Call before you go as their hours can be a little strange.

The street tree coupon program is back. You would have to check with the city but basically, you pay $100 (or whatever the program amount) for the certificate and it is worth double at the nurseries. You have to plant the tree within a 10 ft or so of the street and the city does restrict varieties (when I did it, the list was long) but you get double the tree for the $$.

Finally, if we have a dry hot summer again and it is looking like that is going to happen, all the trees will be on sale by 1 July. You will have to water and baby them along but you sound like you know what you are doing so you would have no problems.

My personal favorites probably won't work for you. I love hackberries and white firs. Hackberries is a native that doesn't winter kill or drop anything other than leaves in the fall and the white fir does require a little more moisture doesn't have pine bettle issues.

Good luck, Nancy

Brady's down is Canon is VERY affordable and they sell to the public. If you're looking for medium-sized trees, you could even haul them home yourself.

Paulino's up in Denver is also more affordable than Co Sp nurseries. Tagawa in Parker/Aurora is very expensive, so steer clear of them if you have a tight budget. They do have some nice stuff though!

Nancy

I read someplace (sorry, but I can't remember where) that buying larger trees doesn't necessarily give a bigger tree over a few years than buying a smaller one. According to the article I read, the larger the tree, the more it gets stressed in transplanting, so the large tree is larger the first year, but grows slowly the next few as it recovers from the shock. Larger trees are also supposedly more likely to die in the first couple of years. The smaller trees start out small, recover right away, and end up as large as, and maybe healthier than the trees that started large.

I don't know whether that's true or not, but it made sense to me when I read it.

Of course, I'm a cheapskate, and it may well be that the reason it made so much sense to me is that it made it easy for me to justify spending less money.