Too late in the season?

ekillians

Is it too late in the season to put the following nursery stock I recently purchased into the ground?

For those of you NOT in the US - spring has begun and the buds on all of my trees have been open for about a month now.

Hinoki Cypress
Juniper
Cotoneaster
Bald Cypress
Dawn Redwood
Japanese Red Maple
Japanese Black Pine
Japanese White Pine

I've got a bunch of ground tilled and ready for planting but I wanted to make sure this wouldn't cause any serious problems.

Thanks,
-EK

__________________
The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, 'In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!'
-- John F. Kennedy

Advertisement

jfecme

Well, I don't know how your daytime temps are now, but if it's really warming up like it is here in Ga. it seems to me that you may be at the end of the season for transplanting.

If you decide to do it I would offer the following suggestions:

Trim ( not hard prune) some excess foilage off first.

Make sure your grounds is good and friable all the way down to below where the bottom of the roots are going to be.

I don't like the idea much of completely undoing the root ball, but you slhould consider unwrapping any wrap-around bound roots, being sure to not destroy feeder roots.

If your soil is heavy and dense, be sure you add enough soil conditioner to keep it kind of loose as you backfill. Just don't make a bunch of frog swimming pools out of each planting.

Be sure you are planting where you can get water to these trees easily in time of drought. Consider placing soaker hoses down on top of the soil.

I would consider mulching with something like pinestraw that will let a lot of water through when it rains. Be sure the ground stays neither soggy nor dries out over the summer.

Finally, down here in dry Georgia fall is the best time to plant trees, but it works in the spring as well as long as these precautions are followed.

__________________
Over 25 years experience - good and bad, and still learning!

Dav4

Basically, you can plant out a container grown tree or a b+b'd tree at any time if the soil is workable, meaning "not frozen". What you can't do, if the tree is too far along into its spring growth, is alot of root work. That's better done in early spring, though there are more and more folks doing re-pots on pines in mid summer. Still, a re-pot is different then planting a tree in the ground. For my landscape trees, I usually just roughen the edges of the rootball or make shallow slices into the rootball to cut encircling roots. That's all I would do to these trees right now if they are actively growing. Mulching is a great idea...I use chipped pine bark or hardwood mulch-basically whatever is available. Finally, you will need to water these trees regularly right through the coming summer and fall. Good luck,

Dave

subnet_rx

That pretty much describes what I was going to say also and was the advice to me by a local nursery owner. If you plant them this late, you just have to take care of them a little more than if you plant them in the fall. The reason being because the root system hasn't spread enough yet for the tree to be able to supply it's own nutrients and water for growth. You should not bare-root, or trim the roots. Just a few shallow slices as dave said, and put them in the ground.