Maple Leaves Forever visited Winkelmolen Nursery Ltd. recently to introduce our new Executive Director Deb Pella Keen to the staff and to get her boots dirty with a tour of the nursery facilities and production fields. We were shown high quality native maple seedlings, saplings and larger trees growing in fertile soils as we travelled throughout the nursery. We were encouraged to hear that the nursery is continuing to make incremental increases in their production of native maples, with an awareness of the need for the planting of more native species.
Our hosts, Jeff Winkelmolen and Christian Schramp took time to explain to Deb how trees were being grown and “the why we do this” on many occasions. It was a thoroughly relaxed and entertaining visit.
We thanked Christian and Jeff for their hospitality and a said a special Thank You to the Winkelmolen family for their continued support of the Maple Leaves Forever Program.
A field of two year old sugar maple seedlings.* 
One-year-old sugar maple saplings.* 
Two-year-old sugar maple saplings.*
*A note regarding seedling and sapling age:
Seedling age is determined by the number of years the seedlings have grown in a nursery seedbed, or the time since the seed was planted into a nursery seedbed. It takes two years to grow a sugar maple seedling. This is called a 2+0 seedling. The “2” tells us the number of years in the seedbed. The “0” tells us the seedling has spent no time in a transplant field.
The nursery industry uses this correlation to tell the age of seedlings and transplants. For example, a 2+2 tree spends 2 years growing in a seedbed and 2 additional years in a transplant bed. It is four years old.
The “one year old saplings” above, are 5 year old trees, having spent 2 years in a seedbed + two years lined out in a nursery field + 1 additional year in a nursery field during which time it is cultured to produce a sapling. Timewise, it is five years old from when the seed was planted into a seedbed on the nursery. Its actual age is 2+2+1 or 5 years. Size 100-150 cm.
A “two year old sapling” is six years old, having spent two years growing in the seedbed + two years lined out in the nursery field + 2 years of specialized cultural care in the nursery. Actual age is 2+2+2 or 6 years. Size 150-250 cm.