FREE online courses on Vegetable Gardening - Planting Trees & Shrubs - Planting Balled & Burlapped Trees & Shrubs

 

Ideally, you'd have the nursery deliver your balled and burlapped plants right where you want to plant them (especially trees) because they are awkward to move.

 

Don't pick trees up by their trunk. That could mess up their rootball. You can roll them a few feet, but be careful because this can crush the roots.

We like to put them on a tarp, and drag that.

 

Dig the hole 6 inches wider than the tree or shrub rootball. And for depth, you want the top to be a little higher than ground level or above the mulch line if you are mulching.

 

Lay a stick across the hole and measure down from that to make sure you are getting the right depth.

 

The burlap's bio-degradable so you can actually leave it on after planting. Just pull it back and down the sides so it doesn't wick moisture away from the ball.

 

Now we want to shovel dirt back in around the ball till it's about half-way filled.

 

Fertilizer is not recommended for trees because it promotes leaf growth, and what you want the first year is for the roots to get established.

 

However, there are slow release fertilizers that work over a 3-year period that you can use.

If you've got a heavy clay soil, you can mix some peat moss in around the plant to create kind of an intermediate zone for the roots to grow through.

 

Once the hole's half-filled, you want to soak it with water. That's to pack the soil down a bit and make sure the roots get adequate moisture.

 

And to remove any air pockets, just jab the hose in and out of the soil around the rootball.

 

Fill the hole up and form a basin around the rootball with the extra soil. This will pool water right over the rootball which needs a lot of moisture the first week.

 

Then water the whole thing thoroughly to help settle the backfill and soak the rootball. Don't worry about over-watering the first week after planting. Lack of water is much more of a problem at this point.