FREE online courses on Vegetable Gardening - Planting Trees & Shrubs - Planting Bare Root Trees & Shrubs

 

Bare root plants are taken out of the ground dormant, the soil's washed off, and they're stored till the next growing season.

 

This is the easiest way to ship them and the cheapest for the customer. However, they won't have any leaves till a few weeks after planting.

 

Planting bare root shrubs is different from how you plant the other forms.

 

First, just take one plant off the bundle at a time. And keep the others covered so they don't dry out.

 

Then you clip a quarter inch off the bottom of each root. That's to promote new growth.

The planting hole should be six inches wider and six inches deeper than the roots themselves, which aren't really too massive.

 

Once you get the right depth, you want to build up a mound of soil at the bottom of the hole to rest the root mass on.

 

It should be high enough that the crown is just above ground level plus 2 to 4 extra inches if you're adding mulch. A stick laying across the hole will help you determine how high it should be.

 

Then once the mound is at the right height, set the plant over that and spread the roots over the mound.

 

Then you fill up the hole halfway with soil and pour water over that to help it settle. These are going to need a lot of water the first week.

 

You can fine-tune the plant's position at this point and then fill in the rest of the soil, packing it all in firmly and watering again.

 

As a final step, you should prune each plant heavily to reduce the shock of re-planting. They recommend taking off from a third to a half of the branches.

 

Since this will be a hedge, you want them wider at the bottom than at the top, slanted on both sides. So you cut at an angle. That promotes leaf growth all over the plant for a nice full hedge.