Start your own personal conservation effort with the simple act of planting a tree or, if you have the space, acres of trees. Trees and forests provide wildlife habitat, water quality improvement, recreational opportunities, soil erosion control, and wood products.

This web site provides the information and resources to understand all your options for planting and managing healthy trees. You can also turn to the Iowa State Forest Nursery or your local private sector nursery for assistance.

For new wildlife planting designs designed by IDNR Wildlife Biologists utilizing pre-packaged wildlife specialty packets form the State Forest Nursery are now available. New designs are available for the pheasant, quail, turkey, and songbird packets.

Operation Releaf and Plant Some Shade Tree Distribution Programs

Nurseries Providing Iowa Grown Trees and Shrubs

2007 Iowa Woodland Suitability Recommendations,*.pdf

Native Tree and Shrub List

Why Plant Iowa Adapted Native Trees and Shrubs

Private Landowner Assistance

Bottomland Tree Initiative

Forested Riparian Buffers

General Conservation Reserve Program

Landowner Cost-Share Programs

Planting Trees and Shrubs for Wildlife

Iowa Nurseries and Landscapers


Forest Quotes

The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.
- John Muir

In the woods we return to reason and faith.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The cultivation of trees is the cultivation of the good,
the beautiful and the ennobling in man.
- J. Sterling Morton

What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection
of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.
- Gandhi