Afforestation in the first two decades of the 21st century for post-agrogenic lands in the subzones of the northern, typical and southern forest-steppe was considered. The study was carried out in the Central Chernozem region of Russia, including the Oryol oblast. The natural afforestation rate was estimated using first-order derivative of the NDVI vegetation index with respect to time. It is also proposed to estimate the afforestation rate using the first-order derivative of the calculated forest cover with respect to time. In the first two decades of the 21st century, the increase in the forest cover of abandoned lands varied significantly among the subzones of the forest-steppe. During the analyzed period, the forest cover of abandoned agricultural lands in the northern forest-steppe increased according to a logarithmic dependence. In the typical forest-steppe subzone, the forest cover of abandoned lands increased according to a similar dependence at a slower rate. The annual increase in the forest cover of abandoned lands located in the subzone of the southern forest-steppe was minimal or absent. The rate of afforestation, expressed by the first-order derivative of the vegetation index from time, in the subzone of the northern forest-steppe exceeded that in the typical forest-steppe more than 1.7 times. The afforestation rate in the northern forest-steppe subzone exceeded that in the southern forest-steppe by 5–6 times. The ratio of the average calculated values of abandoned land forest cover of in the forest-steppe subzones at the end of the second decade of the 21st century turned out to be approximately similar to the ratio of their actual values. The established patterns are indicators of an increase in intrazonal differences in the forest cover of abandoned lands in the forest-steppe. Different afforestation rates lead to increase in the contrast landscapes of forest-steppe in its submeridional boundaries.