Permaculture Skills: Propagate Your Own Trees (with Nick Wrenn and Matt Tracy)

Hillsborough, NC

This workshop is part of our 2026 Permaculture Skills series. After this morning workshop, we’re offering an afternoon workshop on Growing Mushrooms at the same location. Come for one or stay for both!

You Can Grow Way Too Many Trees in a Small Space!

Learn from an experienced tree grower how to start some of our most valuable local trees from cuttings and seeds!

With air prune beds you can start a whole lot of trees for free. This is one way to make forest gardening and Permaculture much more affordable.

Air prune beds help trees develop strong root systems perfect for planting out in Spring. They require little maintenace and work with even a small space.

Soon, you’ll have more trees than you know what to do with…!

Featuring an Experienced Tree Nursery Grower

For this workshop, we’ve asked Nick Wrenn from Living Soil Tree Farm to guest teach. He brings a whole lot of experience propagating healthy trees and building and using air prune beds. He also knows a bunch of about our native trees and after this workshop, so will you!

In this workshop, for a small materials fee, you’ll also be able to take home your own air prune bed. Add some compost and you’ll have everything you need to begin this year.

And, because this is one of our workshops, there will be a whole lot of learning about the uses / gifts of trees, ways to plant them for windbreaks, hedge rows, privacy screens, to restore land, and in a food forest. Really, with Nick and Matt together, try to make us stop talking about trees. We can’t.

Topics:

• The basics of propagating your own trees from seeds and cuttings
• Some of the best native trees to propagate
• Uses for some of our favorite trees for humans and the wild
• Building and using an air prune bed that you can take home!
• Planting trees – when, where, how
• … and all kinds of other tree wisdom.

Venue and Workshop Details:

Our Saturday afternoon workshop will be held at Jubilee Healing Farm – a beautifully tended small farm located on 10 acres in Hillsborough, NC that supports volunteer and community-building activities and workshops for people seeking healing.

We’ll have the workshop outside unless the weather is truly extreme.  Please wear comfortable clothing for the day. If it’s going to rain a little, bring rain gear.

We may do a little forest walking.  Good to wear compatible footwear.  If you’re concerned about ticks or other itchy expressions of the local ecology, please bring non-toxic insect deterrent.

What to Bring:

• Journal and pen
• Water bottle
• Work clothes you don’t mind getting a little dirty

Also:

• Openness to different ways of seeing and living
• Kindness towards the plants, animals, soil, water, and other people here
• Inclusivity and welcoming spirit towards the people in the workshop
• Willingness to put your phones away and tune into your senses
• Curiosity about life and what each other and the land has to say

Sign-Up

Exact workshop cost is still being finalized as we calculate materials costs to take home your own air prune bed… save the date, check back on this page, and watch for an email when we’ve got it figured out.

In the afternoon after this workshop, we’ll be offering another on Growing Mushrooms from Logs and in the Garden. Come to one or stay for both!

Check out the other workshops in our Fall 2026 Permaculture Skills series

About the Facilitators:

Nick Wrenn

Nick Wrenn has been in a deep relationship with trees for as long as he can remember. As a young child Nick could always be found in the woods playing amongst the trees. During high school and college, he worked as a landscaper in the suburban environment just outside Philadelphia PA. College took him down a different road where he studied Civil Engineering and worked on highway projects. His formal work with plants began in earnest after leaving his job in construction management in early 2020.

Since that time Nick has been fully committed to working with plants, especially trees. As he explored various plant-based careers, he came across the work of Dr. Elaine Ingham and in 2021 completed the Soil Food Web School foundations courses. With an appreciation and understanding of the soil food web as a foundation Nick went on to research permaculture, compost production, regenerative agriculture, plant breeding/seed saving and agroforestry.

Over the past 4 years Nick has filled various roles on small scale farms, completed compost production trainings, attended various workshops, and co-run several seed swaps.

His main work over the past two years has been to establish a tree nursery (Living Soil Tree Farm) and food forest on his grandparent’s farm in Cedar Grove NC where Nick grows 1000s of mostly native, mostly food producing trees each year. These trees are offered bare root during the dormant season. The nursery also offers various tree seeds and cuttings. Nick uses the food forest site to explore various low input techniques for establishing trees and shrubs.

Matt Tracy

Matthew “Watersong” Tracy started practicing Permaculture in 2011 and received his design certificate from Wild Abundance in 2015. He has been consulting and teaching as a Permaculture Designer since 2018.

Along the way, he learned from numerous Permaculture teachers, tended land with minimal inputs, worked with around 70 clients on their land, lived off-grid for a decade, and made (… and still makes!) a whole lot of humbling and valuable mistakes on his way back to life in harmony with the earth. 

Matt is also an herbalist (…in training, like all herbalists..!) and has been putting strong-tasting plants in bottles to make helpful things happen since 2007. He prepares dozens of local herbal medicines for his community every year. 

With all that experience, Matt is ever a beginner and student of the land. Nature is infinite. What can we do but listen and try?

Matt is honored to be a Permaculture guide to anyone interested in coming a little closer to the earth. Becoming a father in 2023 has made passing down these teachings that always consider future generations more important than ever.

Read the rest of Matt’s bio here.