Spring 2024 Pre-Orders are now Closed --- Check back February 1st for our Spring 2025 offerings.

About Us

Located in eastern Ontario, 50 km northwest of Kingston, Golden Bough Tree Farm has been growing rare and native plants for over 50 years. Our seedlings are now mature trees in every province of Canada. 

Prices here are remarkably low because we sell only bare-root plants—not the pot, the soil, nor the sales staff. Our trees and bushes come to you in a dormant state. When plants awake from winter, they wait a few weeks for the proper heat and light conditions to begin growth. The reverse is true in the autumn when plant metabolisms slow down before freeze-up. Only during these brief weeks of dormancy can we dig, grade, pack and mail your choices.  

We offer plants in three forms: 

  1. SEEDLINGS One to three years old, dug from the bed in which they grew from seed. These seedlings are graded and priced by size. The smallest are replanted in rich nursery beds and sold later as larger, stronger transplants. SEEDLINGS are less expensive but younger and take more care.
  2. TRANSPLANTS have been pruned and quickly replanted at regular spacings in fertile soil where concentrated nutrients create compact, fibrous root-systems which suffer little shock when dug for sale two or three years later. If trees of the same size were dug from the wild only traumatized root stubs would remain with a poor rate of survival and growth. 
  3. OVERSIZED STOCK Some transplants grow too large to be mailed - 1.6 metres being the maximum length allowed by Canada Post. Customers who can pick up their orders often benefit by receiving XL stock for the same price as mail-order size. Big trailers or enormous vans are NOT necessary to get these trees home: pickup trucks, station wagons, car roofs, large trunks and fold-down back seats usually suffice. Bring a tarp.
Veronica O'Hara hugging her beautiful Spruce tree.

Success in transplanting bare-root plants is directly proportional to the effort put into site preparation. The quicker your plants are in the ground, the better they will grow. Bare surfaces heat up and lose moisture quickly so form the soil into a bowl (for easier watering) and mulch generously with straw, lawn-cuttings, leaves or wood chips. Heavy watering twice a week is better than a daily dribbling.

Basically, the first year shows little growth. Be grateful that your plants leafed out and are busy re-establishing their roots. During the second year the leaves should appear more lush and modest growth will occur. It is during the third year that plants take off. Time and again customers have told us of walking their properties and wondering, "How did those great things get there!"

Contact Information 

We recognize the importance of customer contact and have found that email is the best way to maintain this relationship.

We regret we cannot answer specific questions about which trees you should plant on your property. Personal taste is so subjective that it is important that you decide what is best for your property and climate. Being a seasonal family farm, we do not have the staff required to help with these decisions. A little research at the library or on the internet will go a long way toward your decision making.

If you do need to contact us, please email us at admin@goldenboughtreefarm.ca 

 

The gallant seed picker, Ted Cormier, up to his spruces.
Picking Ironwood seed in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery.
Picking seeds in an arboretum.