Planting anytime between mid-fall to early-spring should be fine in your area. Below is a link to information that you might find helpful when planting your tree.

Here is a link that might be useful: Planting a Tree or Shrub

This is one tree i have had difficulty transplanting bae root. I have never outright killed one but the first two I tried bare root in the fall died back to ground level then resprouted. I chose a leader on the first and attempted to move it the next year as I had changed plans. Well the fella had quite the difficult to remove tap root and poof, same thing.

Next bare root Nyssa a virtually identical experience.

Loving the tree and loving pain I tried another one this year! This time a locally bought four footish wildprairiefire or some cultivar in a pot and transplanted a earlier, just after the heat of summer if i recall. That fella never missed a beat. It retained leaves till late in the season and looked great. We will see about the soring lol but the twigs look fine.

So I would try spring and possibly a SMALL potted transplant if i had my choice again.

I tried planting one in the fall a few years back and it never sprouted in the spring.

A dry, warm winter could have killed it. Nonetheless, now you can do it as soon as the soil can be safely worked.

Dan

Thanks for the good advice Toronado. I've always wanted one, but haven't got around to it yet. I don't see it in local nurseries, for one reason, and stories abound about how hard it is to transplant. That lessens the odds that I would order it online.
When they say it is hard to transplant, I take it as a personal challenge. ;-)

I love the fall color and think that it would be a nice addition to my garden. I'm heavy into Fall color. It might look good next to a Sourwood Tree, (Oxydendrum arboreum) which, for some reason, I put in the same classification, or area, as the Nyssa. Both tricky to transplant and I'm not familiar with them. The land of deciduous forest is unfamiliar to me. I don't even own an Oak.....and don't want to.
Mike

Agree with planting now is a good ideal. I planted one a couple years ago in fall. Was in too small a pot, had to do some real cutting on the roots and was already leafless. Kinda surprised it survived the first winter. First summer, small leaves, little growth, but never really seemed water stressed. Second summer nice 8-12" growth, and nice caliper increase, and apparently doing well now.

I also collected seed a couple years ago, and raised them the first growing season in 1 gallon pots (didn't know they could grow so fast), then gave them away to friends and neighbors. All survived that were grown in pots with last summer being a drought year. Most added about 1' last year. So based on my experience with Nyssa is that pot grown plants are definitely the way to go.

Arktrees

Thanks all! I'll try again. I can't seem to get close to any where I can find seeds or seedlings so I'll have to order one again.

Blackgum's do indeed have a deep taproot and hate being messed with. I tried to transplant one out of the woods once and I swear I must have dug three feet trying to get that root up, it still died. Find one that has been grown in a deep tree pot. Mailordernatives probably has them.