Tree Planting Advice for Beginners

If you are planting a seedling that is not balled and burlapped, you will want to protect it by "heeling in" a vacant flower bed where it may be kept before planting as long as dormant. This means laying it on its side and covering the roots with good soil. When you take it from the soil, give it a mud bath or "puddle" it. Puddling protects the roots from exposure to air before planting and also from any air pockets which may exist after planting.

Having filled the hole to the depth required by the roots of the plant, flood it with water to settle the soil at the bottom. When this has drained away, place the tree in the position in which it is to grow and settle the soil about it. Use a stick or shovel handle to work the soil around the roots, and make certain there are no air pockets. Spread the roots out naturally, planting the tree at about the same depth as in the nursery or its former location.

When the hole is two-thirds full, trample it down and again fill with water. Don\'t firm down the remaining soil, so that the water will drain towards the trunk. A balled-and-burlapped tree is one dug with a solid ball of rich, heavy loam in which it has been growing in the nursery for years, its root system thus amply covered and protected. The ball is firmed and held in place by a secure covering of twine and burlap.

To plant it, set the tree in a hole a trifle lower than it stood in the nursery. Work the soil beneath this depth, as directed above. Dig the hole about twice the size of your ball and plant at once. If the ground is dry at planting time, fill the hole with water and let it soak away before planting. Cut the burlap at the top when you put the ball in place, rolling it back 3 or 4 inches. Plant ball, burlap and all, because the burlap will soon rot away.

If you are planting a big tree, it is transported in a truck, lowered to the ground by winches, rolled along a plank track on rollers and maneuvered into the exact center of the hole on a single board. A holding rope from the truck to the base of the tree trunk helps to position the tree. After the tree is planted, cutting back is proper. Cut back sharply by at least one-third, by pruning the branches.

It is necessary to brace the tree with wire ropes so that the roots will not be broken by the wind. Use a single wire around the trunk and three guy wires. For the first year after planting, the more you cultivate it, the better it will grow. Keep weeds away, too, with straw or mulch, and strawy manure mulch in the spring and fall will help keep the moisture in the ground. This will enable the tree to start growing and leafing out early in the spring as soon as the conditions are right.