How to plant a tree

You've just bought home a tree (or even a potted flower) to plant in your garden. Congratulations! 

Now you have to get it into the ground...

If you don't follow a few basic steps (which I'll give you below), the roots could end up strangling themselves, and your tree will fail to thrive. Or they could end up circling in a large hole of sweet soil, ignoring the native soil of your garden (and maybe blow over on a windy day).

These instructions are straight from modern horticultural best practice, and work for trees or even annuals and perennials like lavender or daisies.

The steps of planting a tree

1. Make a hole twice as wide as the pot, and the same depth. Pile the soil you dig out right next to the hole. If your soil is very clayey, leaving smooth sides to the hole, use the corner of the shovel to run grooves down the sides of the hole. These are places where the roots will spread out through the soil.
2. Pop the plant out of its pot and inspect the roots.
3. If the roots are circling, then you’ll have to tease them out. If the plant is root bound (the roots are a solid mass circling the pot) you’ll have to cut them. This might seem cruel, but if you leave them growing like they are, they’ll strangle the tree to death before it gets too much bigger. Take an old knife and slash the roots from the top to the bottom four times spaced around the circle. You’ll have made four segments. Get your fingers in and tease out these roots, discarding the cut ends. If you prune off lots of roots, its a good idea to prune the top as well, so the smaller root ball doesn't struggle to feed the same sized plant.
4. Make sure the root ball doesn’t dry out during this process by keeping a spray bottle or watering can with a seaweed solution in it on hand.
5. Sit the plant in the hole with the original level of potting mix at ground level.
6. Backfill by pushing the soil originally from the hole back in around the plant. There’ll be some extra, use this to make a ridge around the hole, so that any water that falls will be concentrated close to the tree.
7. DO NOT add fertiliser or extra potting mix to the hole. This causes the roots to stick around in the hole instead of spreading out and will make a tree more likely to fall over.
8. Press down on the soil with the heel of your hand or your actual heel to settle the tree and help it stand.
9. If you must stake the tree, now is the time to bang three stakes in outside the hole. Don’t hold the trunk too tightly with the stakes, or it will never grow strong.
10. Topdress with fertiliser (something organic, like manure, dynamic lifter, worm castings, etc) and water in with some seaweed solution.
11. Add irrigation if you’ve decided to go down that path.
12. Mulch thickly out beyond the dripline and water again.
13. Attach the webbing to the stake, if you’re using one, making sure that the trunk can move a bit from side to side (this will strengthen it over time).

You’re done.

When it goes wrong

There was this one time, when I got a new fig tree, and I didn't follow these instructions when I was planting it. The fig didn't put out any new leaves for about two years, and it didn't get any taller. Finally, I dug it up, and the roots were just the same as when I'd planted it. I cut and teased them out, and it rewarded me with fresh figs that season.  

Any plant has a dormant period just after it has been transplanted. Horticulturists call this transplant shock. This is why the seaweed solution is useful (it's a root shock tonic), and watering in organic matter at the time of planting feeds the soil biology—which will support your plant.

Younger plants have a shorter period of transplant shock.

This is why a tubestock plant will often overtake a larger plant when both have been in the ground for a season or two. It is also why sometimes those mega-expensive huge trees take a few years to look like they are dying.

Now you...

Have you ever had a tree that failed to thrive? Is planting out something you get through as quickly as possible, or do you enjoy digging in the soil? Do you have any war stories of planting out to share?

Let me know in the comments.