Legacy-Trees is a system of producing trees that works in concert with the tree’s root system to mimic how tree roots grow in the forest. Our system encourages this natural root development and delivers an undamaged root system that is ready to immediately colonize your property. We combine this system of production and transplanting to bring you a superior tree that will be there for generations. Click here to learn more.

Our system is backed with a five-year warranty on the tree when you enroll in our Stewardship Program.

Legacy-Trees and network companies ask owners to commit to stewardship of trees they have planted. The three aspect of tree stewardship are juvenile pruning, soil resource management, and plant health care. In the first phase of a tree’s life the “juvenile growth phase” the tree is trying to outcompete competitors from the forest ecosystem it likely evolved. In your yard this leads to quick growth and improper branch angles that will eventually split out in a storm later in the tree’s life if we don’t prune them when the tree is young. In the forest these branches would receive too much shade as the forest grew taller and would be self-pruned at a small size. In order to create a healthy mature tree, we like to clean the first 1/3 of the tree of all branches, on larger shade trees this can be the first 20 feet of the trunk being branchless. Stewardship also involves managing the soil resources of sites that lack all the adequate resources for tree growth. We provide a fertility strategy to ensure that your new tree can grow in all directions. The final phase of stewardship is plant health care. This is managing all aspects of tree health certain species can be more susceptible to pests or disease at certain stages of life. In order to promote diversity on your site we need to be able to help trees along at critical stages in their life when they may need it to avoid pest or disease damage. The overall goal of stewardship is to establish each tree from day one as an investment that will grow to outlive everyone there to plant it. By becoming stewards of your Legacy Trees aggressively in the first 5 years these trees will become magnificent specimens and examples of the best of their species.

Chestnut Blight, Dutch Elm Disease, and Emerald Ash Borer are classic examples of what can happen when disease or insects invade our communities and take away large numbers of trees. Customers will be provided with a diversity plan for their property. This plan limits the percentage of trees within each genera to a maximum of 20% of the trees on the property.

A collateral benefit of this network is the investment that is made in training the employees from each member company. Every employee whether they are field staff, management, or office staff will receive training to support their knowledge of how trees grow and why this system is so important for long-term tree success. This combined with educating the existing customer base creates an opportunity to separate each company from competitors in their respective markets. Learn More about the President of Legacy-Trees, Ron Zillmer.

Not all at once, that’s for sure! Throughout the year, the trees can be planted from April through freeze up in the fall. We do not encourage planting all of the trees on your plan in one season. This is an investment type strategy that encourages property owners to add trees over a series of years to allow the plan to evolve over time as the trees in your landscape age.

Our menu of trees that we provide each year will vary as we cannot provide every type of tree on a cost effective basis each year – but we will have all of your diversity plan trees available on a three to five year rotational cycle. If there is a type of tree you that you must have, let us know and we will make every effort to grow one for you! See our list of trees here.

All of our trees are the same age and based on species growth differences – they do vary in size at planting time. Our goal is that all trees are 2″ in diameter measured 6″ off the ground. Shade trees should be 12 to 15 feet in height, and ornamentals should be 8 to 12 feet in height.

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I use this phrase to describe the sequence of flowering our ornamental trees can provide in the spring each year. Here is an example of the Parade of Color that we created for the La Crosse, WI region over the past few years. The flowering season kicks off with a Autumn Brilliance Serviceberry in late April producing remarkable white flowers before the forest has fully awoken. An interesting fact about this tree is that it will produce a full flower set in full shade which is unusual for our flowering ornamental trees. The berries provide great bird watching action and the name is derived from the brilliant fall color! Following the departure of the serviceberry flowers the next trees in line are the flowering pears, hawthorns, and crabapples. The pears and hawthorns typically have white flowers whereas the flowering crabapples range from white to red to pink/purple. Combinations of these three varieties of trees can create a spectacular contrast during the middle of the Parade of Color season. Flowering crabapples have come a long way with modern breeding techniques. Today’s crabapples are highly disease resistant and many have persistent fruit. So the crabapples you may remember from years gone bye that dropped their leaves during the summer and then dumped loads of mushy crabapples on the ground are not what we are bringing to you today. The leaves dropped from a disease called Apple Scab which is a fungus and the fruit dropped at maturity just like the regular apple trees are programmed to do. Modern crabapples are bred to be highly disease resistant and the fruit is held on the tree for most of the winter into spring. That allows wildlife to take advantage of this food source all winter and keeps the area under your crabapple trees free of the mess! My favorite sight in the spring is seeing Robins eating the crabapples after a late snow fall. The final act of the Parade of Color is the Japanese Tree Lilacs exploding with blossoms in early June! This is truly one of my favorite trees as it flowers after the other trees have moved on and it concludes the six week Parade of Color season! This tree also features a shiny bark and pronounced lenticels to create a striking appearance all year.