really stupid tree planting question

6t56

6t56

Location
Cleveland,oh
I'll be honest here,I don't plant trees so i don't have a clue what is right and what is wrong.I want to plant some maples,oaks,and possibly spruce or white pine around my property.What do i need to know as far as how big to make the hole,fertilizer,etc.
 
If you want to learn the BEST way, IMO, you should read and learn how to bare root a tree, correct roots if needed and pant at the proper depth.

Here is what I do:

-Dig hole 2X-3X wider than root ball, ONLY AS DEEP AS THE ROOT FLARE!
-Mix the native soil with good compost 4(soil)-1(compost)
-Remove all wire, burlap, twine, etc etc
-Rinse off all soil in the root ball away from the hole to expose all roots
-Inspect and correct roots as needed
-Water down the hole really well, fill with water and let drain 1-2 times
-Place in hole so the root flare is just above grade
-Begin backfilling and slightly compacting the soil as you go with your boot. You're not trying to stomp it tight, just firm it up a bit. Only fill hole to grade, ensuring the root flare is still exposed.
-Water DEEP, overflow area with water and let drain
-Soil drench with Myco fungi
-If this is a wooded area add some natural leaf litter at this point.
-Top dress with 2"-4" of fresh compost at least twice as wide as the root ball.
-Add 3"-4" composted (at least 6 months) wood chips, you can use bark mulch or nuggets if there is a desired look. The wood chips add nutrients, and help build soil structure. Bark mulch is great too! Doesn't build soil structure at all though no nutrients in the bark. Pine needles work as well depending where you are
-stake the tree as needed

I left out building a berm of soil around the hole. I only do this on hills. MOST people forget top remove the berm after 3-4 weeks and the fibrous roots get into the berm. This creates the situation of when the berm is removed later, you damage some of these young tender roots that are so vital to the plant.

Think I hit all the points.....

Good luck!
 
[ QUOTE ]
that is one cute hot dog. what is the little guys name?

[/ QUOTE ]

I honestly don't know,i found the picture online.My girlfriend has a weiner dog just like it,his name is mickey.So just pretend that's him
grin.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
I'll be honest here,I don't plant trees so i don't have a clue what is right and what is wrong.I want to plant some maples,oaks,and possibly spruce or white pine around my property.What do i need to know as far as how big to make the hole,fertilizer,etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most of what you need is online.

One link posted earlier is a good starter. It was this one:

Tree Planting Information

Whether or not to remove soil from a rootball, or how much can be a questionmark.

If all the soil is removed, and you don't virtually make a mud out of the backfill, proper soil contact with roots and root hairs may not happen right.

Sometimes, complete soil removal and "teasing" of roots to spread them out, can result in total destruction of backfill soil structure.

If the roots are in a ball of real soil, I usualy leave the ball alone and pull circling roots loose, if any.

If the ball is sort of potting-soil-like, and the backfill is heavier, rain or irrigation can pool or collect in the rootball if the subsoil does not drain. If the subsoil drains okay, then its not a big deal. But if the subsoil hinders drainage, it may be worth effort to remove the compost like potting soil from the rootball and replace everything with real soil of the same texture.

If you don't get a ton of rain, the original rootball mix may not be a big deal. Consider that in the wild, many trees begin on porous logs or stumps and later root into heavier soil: lasting for centuries.

One time, on the property where I grew up, I cut a hemlock and roots off a stump with a chainsaw, and just planted the stump top rootball in the clay texture soil uphill near our home.
 
We have really good luck planting bareroot . I can't find a disadvantage yet. There cheap, easy to handle, sooo easy to plant, We literally set the root system on the ground and put soil over it loosely steak it and walk away. The trees don't really shock from the planting process since you are planting with a nearly complete root system. A 1" bareroot whip planted next to a 2" bb will pass it up the first season in the ground and continue to be more vigorous than the b b. Lawyer Nursery is a great source , they have just about any plant you could want. There is NO better way to plant trees in my opinion.
 
I completely agree with Will. And if you feel you need to plant a larger tree that you buy B&B you should bare root it before you plant it. And by that I mean remove all the soil surrounding the roots, not what bare rooting means to all our friends down under. Dr. Bonnie Appleton of Virginia Tech has been doing some compelling research backing up the benefits of removing all material and soil/medium at the time of planting.
 
I have planted upwards of about 300 bare root trees, mostly from Schictel's nursery in upstate NY, and almost invariably these trees struggle or fail to thrive in their first year or two. So much so that we have stopped using them altogether for our planting program.

We start planting around the first week of April, and we plant for three or four consecutive Saturdays. I believe the early digging combined with the extended storage period is what causes our problems. I have stored them in woodchips, and in hydrogel/bags, always using the BMP's, and have had very little success, sad to say.

Having said that, I still bare root B&B stock regularly, and we do some serious deconstruction on our container stock as well. I have seen Bonnie Appleton's talks, and I love how she defies conventional knowledge! Missed her at her most recent engagement up here; she got sick and had to cancel. :(

-Tom
 
[ QUOTE ]
I completely agree with Will. And if you feel you need to plant a larger tree that you buy B&B you should bare root it before you plant it. And by that I mean remove all the soil surrounding the roots, not what bare rooting means to all our friends down under. Dr. Bonnie Appleton of Virginia Tech has been doing some compelling research backing up the benefits of removing all material and soil/medium at the time of planting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you have any links to the research? I would love to read some of it.
 
"Most of what you need is online."

Where, besides
Tree Planting Information
which is just a start?

"If all the soil is removed, and you don't virtually make a mud out of the backfill, proper soil contact with roots and root hairs may not happen right.'
1. Blending in compost-rich soil can avoid the problem of big air pockets. {Thou shalt not amend} is a myth.
2. What is wrong with making mud (soil + water)??

"Sometimes, complete soil removal and "teasing" of roots to spread them out, can result in total destruction of backfill soil structure."

What? How is structure of soil destroyed by removing it?

"If the roots are in a ball of real soil, I usualy leave the ball alone and pull circling roots loose, if any."

What is "real soil"? And how do you know there are no interior circling or girdling roots, if you do not look?

I don't know where you are buying your trees, but do not buy a pig in a poke. Inspect the roots, compare root volume to the table in the BMP.
 
The only reason I plant Balled n burlapped trees is the size advantage. In a municipal setting, bare root trees are simply too small to handle the physical trauma an urban tree faces. I am not talking about a cushy backyard. These are street trees. Between menacing children and the wave of wet snow each time a plow drives by, bare root trees take the worst of it.

However, in any other setting, my first choice is to plant bare root trees. They will take off faster because their root system is much more intact. BnB trees aren't transported with roots, they are transported with the ability to create roots. Also, they are much cheaper so if one does get mowed accidentally, it isn't a large financial loss and you probably planted a few more nearby in anticipation of this sort of incident.
 
[ QUOTE ]
"Most of what you need is online."

Where, besides
Tree Planting Information
which is just a start?

"If all the soil is removed, and you don't virtually make a mud out of the backfill, proper soil contact with roots and root hairs may not happen right.'
1. Blending in compost-rich soil can avoid the problem of big air pockets. {Thou shalt not amend} is a myth.
2. What is wrong with making mud (soil + water)??

"Sometimes, complete soil removal and "teasing" of roots to spread them out, can result in total destruction of backfill soil structure."

What? How is structure of soil destroyed by removing it?

"If the roots are in a ball of real soil, I usualy leave the ball alone and pull circling roots loose, if any."

What is "real soil"? And how do you know there are no interior circling or girdling roots, if you do not look?

I don't know where you are buying your trees, but do not buy a pig in a poke. Inspect the roots, compare root volume to the table in the BMP.

[/ QUOTE ]

For starters, "real soil" would be something more typical to a local soil versus a near fine barkdust potting mix used by some nurseries.

You must know that already.

And the internet is so extensive, with reams of university extension websites and some rather decent forums, that pages on planting are not hard to come by.

Putting aside some inconsequential questions like "interior circling", I find it much more important to retain the solidarity of what appears to be a sound rootball, especially around April or later in our area. We have had near 100 degree weather late May before. And at least here, get hardly any rain in summer.

Bare root sounds fine to me after the end of October to like the end of March.
 
Mario, do you really trust all that extensions put out, and the internet in general??????? A lot is dead wrong; do you really need citations? Even today some U's are saying "rootball to grade"
crazy.gif


Circling roots in the interior of rootballs is inconsequential? Man, you need to do some autopsies.

Peer-reviewed, field-tested info is worth the effort and expense to obtain. And un-circling roots is a necessary step in tree planting.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Mario, do you really trust all that extensions put out, and the internet in general??????? A lot is dead wrong; do you really need citations? Even today some U's are saying "rootball to grade"
crazy.gif


Circling roots in the interior of rootballs is inconsequential? Man, you need to do some autopsies.

Peer-reviewed, field-tested info is worth the effort and expense to obtain. And un-circling roots is a necessary step in tree planting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah ... I trust extension stuff - substantial parts - because those folks are generally tapped-into the research coming out of universities. So its still peer-reviewed for origin.

Knowledge is not bottled-up in just a handful of resources these days. And I enjoy reading many outlets and comparing.

Also, did I say the interior roots were inconsequential?
 
The attached is an RCX I did for the RBC Center, the NCSU hockey/basketball/concert venue. 100s more like it, paid for with my tax money. Gag.

"Yeah ... I trust extension stuff - substantial parts - because those folks are generally tapped-into the research coming out of universities. So its still peer-reviewed for origin."

Yeah, maybe reviewed by misinformed peers, operating in a closed environment, like an echo chamber. Re tapped into credible and current research, that is a wild assumption. Maybe in Oregon. I keep shoving ANSI in their faces, and they keep listening to each other instead.

Misinformation from NCSU about tree planting is common, even in recent publications. These were the first three that google found: http://alamance.ces.ncsu.edu/files/library/1/Tree%20Planting%2010-07-09.pdf

http://wayne.ces.ncsu.edu/index.php?page=news&ci=LAWN+157

This one almost got it right, but it does not have the standard “trunk flare to grade” specification:
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/extgardener/tree.pdf

"Also, did I say the interior roots were inconsequential?"

Good Grief. Read your last post.
crazy.gif
 

Attachments

  • 215087-RBCPineBuried1.webp
    215087-RBCPineBuried1.webp
    117 KB · Views: 33
[ QUOTE ]


Good Grief. Read your last post.
crazy.gif


[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly Guy ...

Read it.

The statement was in response to questions. Then it looks like - as occassionally happens - you took it out of context.



cool.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom