Green Forests Initiative

About us

Green Forests Initiative is a small tree-planting project based in the Valley, Virginia. It is run by greenneck_lorax as a sole proprietorship, not a registered charity.

Nebraska, June 2026

The Nebraska planting started with clearing ground. About an acre of the site was a cedar monoculture: one species, packed tight, shading out everything beneath it. We rented a chipper and cleared it.

Opening that acre let light back in and gave the canopy room to breathe. Nothing went to waste: we spread the chips across the ground, where they hold moisture in the soil and slow the runoff after heavy rain.

In early June we planted more than 200 trees there, from an order of seven species.

Handwritten tag listing seven tree species and quantities: 25 Norway Spruce, 50 Ponderosa Pine, 25 White Pine, 25 Cottonwood, 50 Seedless Cottonwood, 25 Swamp White Oak, 50 Chokeberry.
The order for the June 2026 planting.

In the ground

Each tree sits in a ring of wood-chip mulch that holds moisture and slows runoff.

A young broadleaf sapling with lobed leaves standing in wood-chip mulch beside tall grasses, with evergreens behind. A bushy young shrub with glossy oval leaves growing from a mound of wood-chip mulch. A small, bushy evergreen seedling with short needles in a ring of wood-chip mulch, surrounded by tall grass. A young evergreen with a straight stem and short-needled branches in a ring of wood-chip mulch. A thin broadleaf sapling with two smaller ones planted in a row on a slope covered in wood chips. A slender young sapling with a few leaves at its tip, in wood-chip mulch on a slope, with large-leaved plants behind.
Young trees from our plantings.

The Virginia nursery

Back home, more than 200 saplings are growing in pots in our nursery, waiting for their turn in the ground.

Rows of young tree saplings growing in black nursery pots on wood mulch.
The nursery in Virginia, August 2026.

What's next

We plan to be licensed to sell trees in Virginia starting January 2027. Longer term, we want to build low-cost tools to track sapling health, so fewer young trees are lost. Donations go to saplings, planting supplies, and the compute for that work.

Support the work or get in touch.