Editor’s Note: The following is an update of an article we wrote about the popular State Forest Nursery program in December 2009.
Freedom—December 8, 2025—Winter hasn’t officially started, but there’s snow on the ground. Lake residents who love to garden and landscape are already thinking about spring and one of the State’s best kept secrets.
Each year the State Forest Nursery Store sells hundreds of thousands of plant seedlings from its irrigated outdoor seedbeds, seed orchards and hybrid species test areas. The nursery has sold millions of tree and shrub seedlings since it was founded 116 years ago.
The store is a tiny speck of a business inside the NH Division of Forests and Lands, which is part of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Many of its sales to homeowners are for specific purposes, such as providing wildlife food and cover, aiding in reforestation or controlling lake and stream erosion. But no purpose is needed beyond the delight of planting a tiny seedling and watching it thrive over the years.
Thrive is the right word, because everything at the nursery is grown in the state from native seed. That means the seedlings are already adapted to New Hampshire’s climate and soil conditions.
The State Forest Nursery was established in 1910 by the authority of the New Hampshire Forestry Commission on a small parcel of land in Pembroke from which it dispensed white pine seedlings.
Much of New Hampshire at the time was cut-over, burned or otherwise in need of reforestation. The State Forest Nursery filled the need for reforestation by supplying planting stock and working with towns and private landowners to establish planting programs.
In the nursery’s first year of operation more than 50,000 seedlings were sold for $3 per thousand. But since the demand that year was for 200,000 plants, the program expanded swiftly.
Diverse Species
The nursery, now in Boscawen, works solely with native seedlings to avoid the possibility that out-of-state trees could introduce diseases to the state.
The nursery currently offers more than 50 species of bare-root seedlings for sale to the public. They include conifer, hardwood, shrub and specialty species, and feature familiar varieties such as Silver and Sugar Maple, and Red and White Oak. Shrub species are divided by fruit-bearing, nut-bearing, pollinators and wetlands varieties.
Most tree and shrub seedlings cost less than $2. For $50 you can purchase a “Hard Mast Package” that contains nut-producing trees and shrubs that can provide a valuable source of protein for wildlife, including squirrels, turkey, deer and bear.
This year the nursery has a limited number of hybrid butternut seedlings. American Cranberry is back in stock after a long absence, and there is a large quantity of winterberry holly.
Last spring’s wet weather conditions affected germination of many shrub species, resulting in limited or no inventory this year for dogwoods, crabapple and alder, among others.
Plants that are ordered now can be picked up at the Nursery in in the spring, or be delivered to a county pick-up location for a small fee.
The nursery advises that many items that sell out quickly are sometimes replenished in the spring when seed beds become ready. Inventory is tracked in real time and is updated every Monday between mid-April and mid-May.
Full details are on the nursery’s website, at this link.