Bare-root trees and bushes

What the heck is a bare-root plant?

As opposed to the potted plants you purchase in a garden center, a bare-root plant is sold without any soil around the roots. These plants were dug up while they were dormant, and packed up using a material like sawdust or moss (for shipping) or wood chips (the way I’m delivering them). These materials keep the roots from drying up while the plant is being delivered.

Why should I get my trees or berry bushes bare-root instead of nicely potted up?

There are several advantages to purchasing and planting bare-root. One is that you get to see the entire root system of the tree. The roots of potted trees and bushes grow around-and-around, following the shape of the pot. These roots stay twisted even once the tree is in the ground, which can reduce the vigour of the tree (and even sometimes lead to the tree dying). In contrast, you can see all the roots of a bare-root tree. When you plant your tree, you should spread out the roots within the hole, so that they grow out in all directions, for maximum tree stability.

Another advantage of receiving your trees bare-root are the ease of transportation – without the large and heavy pots, you can easily fit even large bushes and trees into a car, making pickup a breeze.

Bare-root trees also strongly reduce the possibility of inheriting any weeds from the grower’s location. While seeds and even rooted weeds will often travel with potted plants, bare-root trees and bushes offer protection from this problem.

So you picked up your bare-root plants! Now what?? 

These plants are ready to go in the ground as soon as you pick them up. Plant them as soon as possible, especially if any of the buds are starting to break. Make sure those roots are kept moist at all times! Planting on a rainy day is ideal.

Dig a large hole (unless you have clay soil - see below), to fit all the roots comfortably. Remove the mulch material from around the roots, spread all the roots nicely in the hole you just dug, and back-fill, making sure that the tree / bush is upright. Water well (~5 gallon bucket per tree), walk all over the soil to compact it, and spread compost on the surface of the soil. That mulch material you took out? You can now place it on top of the compost. Waste not, want not. Make sure to add more mulch, to keep those roots moist and cool.

Do NOT add compost, manure, or fertilizer into the hole – it can burn the roots, and it also makes the soil in the hole richer than your actual soil. This may convince your tree to keep its roots in the hole area, as opposed  to spreading out. 

If your soil is very sandy or very poor, you can add good topsoil to the hole, but – again – don’t overdo it. We need to make those roots grow outwards. If your soil is very heavy clay – do NOT dig a hole to plant your tree – otherwise, water will pool in your planting hole over time, drowning your tree. Instead of digging a hole, remove the weeds or grass, loosen the soil, create a mound about 1 ft high using good topsoil from elsewhere, and plant the tree in this mound. Water in and compact the soil just as above.

Make sure that your new trees get a good watering once or twice a week until end of June. Typically, spring rains do this job for us, but make sure to stay on top of it if there's a dry spell.