Trees for Southwest Iowa

For over 35 years Sherbondys have been growing trees at our Underwood Nursery. The micro climate is not the best. Wind is a real challenge and our winter temperatures always seem to be about 3 degrees cooler than in the city. We feel that if we can grow it in Underwood we can grow it anywhere in Southwest Iowa. We sell what we grow. We have three bobcat mounted tree spades that can dig root ball sizes 22" up to 42" in diameter. Our semi truck mounted spade can move a 6" trunk diameter tree. We are all about trees and growing them wisely.

Best website for tree information is www.baileynurseries.com

Decidous Trees Pricing 2011

Evergreen Trees Pricing 2011

Fruit Trees & Fruits Pricing 2011

Elm - I grew up under the elm canopies around Council Bluffs. In 1966 I recall walking up Kenmore Ave and observing crews spraying American Elm trees in an effort to thwart Dutch Elm disease. The effort failed and elms died. Fifteen years ago I talked the city into planting a row of Elms on the South Expressway to screen the grain elevators. Planted along the railraod tracks in brome grass, the trees have thrived. The new USDA elm releases are proving themselves as urban supertrees. We like them and so should you. Check out our new crop of frontier elms which we will be digging this spring

Locust

Locust - We have two locust species here. One is Gleditsia tricanthos which cannot be missed for its large seed pods and thorns you'd think came out of some cruel story. Don't worry, we've tamed the beast and offer seedless and thorn less varieties. The leaves are small and permit sunlight to filter down to lawns. The root system is deep so you don't have to worry about summer tree waterings. Our best variety of seedless locust is Skyline. The other locust variety that garners attention is black locust. You see them in peculiar locations in the spring blooming with big white clumps of flowers. The tree is brittle wooded and has a tendencies to snap off limbs, but it has its fan base because of one variety. The Purple Robe Black locust is worth the risk as a specimen stand alone tree for its magnificent cluster of purple flowers in the spring. Dr. Alan Fisher returned from Costa Rica where he saw the tree blooming and just had to have one.

Blaze Maple

Maples - the native maple species here is the silver maple. My grandfather must have gotten the 20 for $3.29 special from Earl May in 1931. Our home place is decorated with his plantings. They send out their little helicopters in the spring and the black birds come in droves when they bloom with their inconspicuous grainy looking flowers. The Blaze Maple is close to my grandaddy's old tree, but gets great fall color and does not require an airport for all the little helicopter seeds to land on. The Blaze Maple is our number one selling tree.

Oaks - the state tree is the burr oak. It's a slow growing deep rooted gnarly branched piece of wagon train lore. I constantly wonder why every person looking for a tree wants a straight trunked lollipop, factory outlet shaped solar energy converter. Have you ever been inspired by that kind of natural uniformity. I will take the contorted natural, acorn laced, squirrel dwelling longevity of a burr oak every time. The first tree I ever tried to move with a new Vermeer tree spade was a 4 inch burr oak behind my Grampa Larson' old machine shed.. I used every blade in the ground at every angle trying to coax the beast out of the ground. I finally skinned up the trunk in a last ditch effort to win the war. I fought the oak and the oak won. It's now a great looking gnarly thing that shades his grandson's a new pole building.

Flowering Crabapple

Flowering Crabapple Trees - When I was a whipper snapper we use to go down to Les Haas crabapple trees and glean them into a bag for later target practice. A sharp limber branch with a whittled point could be converted into an awesome weapon. Any kid in the neighborhood could be the target as we honed our skills at crabapple catapulting. Things have changed. My wife took my whittling knife away. We sell trees with much smaller fruit that hangs on into the winter for the cedar wax wings and an occasional misguided robin. Prariefire is the Crabtree tree of choice. A dark rosy bloom flower, nice small persistent fruit, high disease resistance makes this a charmer. The other flowering crab we still sell is Spring Snow. Back in the 50s Les Sjulin tramped the North American continent for every new plant he could feature in the Interstate Nursery Catalogue. Les found the Spring Snow Flowering Crabtree in Canada and brought it back to the United States. I went to school with his grandson Eric who still pedals brush to Nurseryman via Sjulin Nursery in Hamburg Iowa. Spring snow blooms white and is the only flowering crab that does not bear fruit.

Flowering Pears

Flowering Pears are not native but have the best white bloom in the spring. The Chanticleer and Cleveland varieties are the same tree and have excellent pyramidal form, and good bright maroon red fall colors, which follow a summer of dark green waxy foliage. Pears are our number one selling ornamental tree.

Hawthorns

Hawthorns - This is a native tree although you have to look a bit. We sell some species that have thorns. For wildlife lovers you may want to consider one of these as the cats can't climb the trees and the birds know that. So you'll generally see multiple bird nests in thorny hawthorn tree.