THE LEAFLET

With a busy planting season quickly approaching, I made my way out to the Casey Trees farm in Berryville, VA – to see the origins of the beautiful trees I so often see lining the streets of DC. The 730-acre farm is a picturesque vision of a calming countryside, but don’t be fooled, busy days at the farm can involve moving, planting, or counting hundreds of trees!  

While there, I got to speak to some of the men on our farm crew about what their workday looked like with all the plantings coming up. The specific team I spoke to was working to unearth 89 trees for transport to be planted, and while a lot of the time trees can be dug up using heavy machinery, some species with more fragile root-systems have to be dug up the old-fashioned way.  

Although the work is so clearly difficult and physically demanding, you can hear the passion they have for their work just by talking to them. Sharing stories of the job and the wildlife that they’ve seen while working, there’s definitely a rewarding feeling that comes with the work that they do.  

Watch and learn as these tree-farming pros give us an inside look at a day in their life and stay tuned for part 2 on our socials as we meet up with the same trees in DC and see what happens next!