Where to get Cedar Poles

Hey guys, I'm from Victoria BC Canada and a buddy and I are determined to put 200 organic hops rhizomes in the ground this spring. We've got a few ideas for potential trellis designs but we're having a lot of trouble finding a place to get cedar poles from.

Building supply stores don't carry them and all the mills we've checked don't have anything except milled 4x4 or 6x6 posts (which would work but aren't cheap). Seems almost like we need to find someone with a lot of trees on their property and go cut them ourselves or somehow get a permit from the gov't to go and bag some trees.

Any ideas? Whats the secret to acquiring 20 foot cedar poles?

Own a plot of 40 foot tall cedar trees and a chainsaw.

Why Cedar?

Why not go with something more readily attainable like, light poles, or pressure treated.

Cedar has a natural preservative in it unlike other poles which would rot faster (3-4feet is buried underground). Pressure treated would be great but would disqualify us from organic certification, which we're thinking of doing down the road.

Im using pine trees that I cut out of my woods... I know I will have to replace them more often, but I would rather keep my cedar trees as trees...

Yes. I realize the properties of cedar but did not consider the Organic approach.

Have you tried contacting an Organic yard to ask what they are using?

Cedar is just not a common stock for this size of lumber/poles.

However, CCA or Chromated Copper Arsenate was outlawed (in the US) for the production of pre-treated lumber in 2004 favoring the less toxic Alkaline Copper Quat and/or Copper Azole so, it begs the question if lumber treated with those compounds meet the certification criteria. They are definitely easier attainable.

You could try this place but I'm sure it's not cheap.

http://www.blpole.com/products_services/western_red_cedar_poles.html

I see they have a Canadian office.

Thanks for the help guys.

Gila - I'm definately going to contact a few local hops guys and see where they got their poles from.

Luv - thanks for the link... I'll give em a call. Can't hurt!

-Jordan