Mostly to establish my own private "climate arboretum", growing species from further south in our northern climate to act as an assisted migration biodiversity pocket. Most trees and shrubs only migrate a few miles a decade, and climate change is poised to start moving so fast that native trees will die out before more southernly species can move in to fill the empty niches. My 1.5 acre plot down here is already filling up fast with persimmons, pawpaws, Osage orange, tupelo, Carolina silverbell, bald cypress, sweetgum, sycamore, shingle oak, chestnut, Carolina allspice, tulip poplar, redbud, pecan, etc.
Since I originally grew up near St. Cloud and have 5 uncles with farms still in the area, I was looking up there at first. My dad had 120 acres there, and my love of environmentalism and planting trees started when I was a teenager in the 1990's. Then he sold the farm around 2013 and and the new owner clearcut everything I had planted for 20 years. I pretty much stopped talking to my dad after that.
Unfortunately, due to high tillable land prices, 20-40 acres of woods is already out of my price range around St. Cloud. Unless one of my uncles offers to sell me land at a discounted rate, I'll probably be looking even further north for my plot of heaven.
= new reply since forum marked as read