Keep moist. Water over the top so whole root zone gets moistened. Are they mulched?

Water until the ground is consistently frozen - don't stop if it freezes for a day or two and then thaws out. In VT growing up, that was usually around the end of Dec., varying by a week or two. Considering the time elapsed since then, and the changing climate, I don't want to venture a guess.....

Just keep checking the ground around the root balls, and water well if you do water. If you haven't mulched, do so - as widely as possible, no deeper than 4", and no mulch in the 2-4" next to the trunks.

Yes, check with your fingers, down an inch or two, and if dry, water from the top down, not with "root feeder".

Normaly, I'd say we'd be done worrying about watering stuff by now, but it's staying so warm.....and dry, I think checking is called for.

+oM

Thanks - couple questions:

1.) Why not with the root feeder? Do you consider that a useless item? If so do you recommend something else? Pail with some hole in it for slow dripping?

2.) I do have a good 2-3 in layer of mulch around each tree. I've heard not to mulch right next to the trunk before - but never understood why this is - is it to prevent mice from hanging out there?

3.) I was going to put some drain tile (painted white) around the tree bases for sun scorching and animals rubbing. Is that still a recommended practice, some reading I have done suggest not to do that at all.

Thanks for the help,

Josh

While we're on the topic of transplanting trees - curious what people think of staking transplanted trees. I've seen two schools of thought:

1. stake em: Important fibrous roots that begin to develop can be severed if the wind moves the tree even small amounts.

2. don't stake em: Trees not staked will develop into stronger adults, avoids girdling.

I live in a pretty windy area, and I noticed 2-3 trees having a hard time with the wind so I staked those in the opposite direction they were leaning using nylon and giving it some slack. The rest seemed ok so I left them alone.

Thanks again,

Josh

DO NOT WATER UNTIL CONSISTENTLY FROZEN .... maybe in SC ... but if you freeze the roots into an ice cube ..they will die from lack of air .... roots need air.. as much as they need water... the great white north is a bit different than the south ....

it really all depends on your soil .... in my sand.. i moved about 60 conifers and trees... watered deeply ... mulched properly .... and finished by 11/1 ... i have not watered since ... and the finger test indicates there is no reason to do any further watering ... its cold... the trees are dormant... and the ambient rain is keeping them moist .. per finger ...

i cant really believe that a 1 inch tree needs a stake... but i never used a tree spade... trees need to blow in the wind... but trees that fall over will die... so stake away ... but by late next spring.. i would start removing such .. or at least loosen the ties... so they can move in the wind .... but have the fail safe of the stake in extreme circ's ...

i personally use all cotton clothes line... it will rot off.. if i have an aneurysm.. and forget to untie the tree ... i have seen too many trees tied with nylon .. any man made billion year 'half-life' material .. choke off limbs.. etc ... but since you are taking my advice to heart ... you will be removing it late next spring ... so i wouldn't bother replacing it for winter ...

i used 4 inch corrugated drain pipe ... to avoid rabbit gnawing .... 4 foot sections.. sliced length wise ... and put around the trees .... you must take into account the height of the hare.. and the snowfall .... a 24 inch protector in 30 inches of snow.. is useless ... pure black .. never bothered to think about painting it white ... 4 hands and leather gloves make application a lot easier than 2 hands ...

normally ... IMHO.. trees NEVER need staking ... but your project is no longer 'normal' in that you moved them ...

you are responsible for all water next year .. insert finger... and in drought the following year ... perhaps one more year with the 3 inchers ...

but.. they are trees .... lived for millions of years without us.. and for 1000 of years in transplants ... do NOT over think this and kill them with too much care ... stake them only to insure they wont fall over... remove staking as soon as possible... water deeply and infrequently .... and protect from vermin if a potential problem ... they do NOT need fertilizer ... nor tree spikes ... nor hormones... nor paints.. nor any other new wave thing some marketing genius thunk up to take your money from you

good luck

ken

PS: never had scald problems inside the black drain pipe either ...

PPS: i used 4 inch pipe on 1 to 1.5 inch trees ... you may need to go to a 6 inch pipe for a 3 inch tree ...

PPPS: i wish you lived closer .. and i could get rid of the 30 pipes i have in the barn ... lol ...

Thanks Ken - that's good stuff.

This is my third time transplanting so I've been doing a lot of research but the more people I ask and the more I read, the more everything conflicts. Of course that has to do with the area you live in, but even here in MN everyone tells me something different. The first time I transplanted I dug by hand, did a crappy job keeping everything moist in transport and lost over half. All my maples choked, but all my cherries made it and a basswood, tough trees. Thinking I learned my lesson I did another dig on a whim, but on a very bad mid-summer hot day. Only one of those 6 made it (again, a little cherry). This time I waited till the right time, got a spade, chose smaller trees (and one big one) and kept the rootballs wet, mulched, watered, etc.

Then the opinions started - someone told me I had to stake every tree for 2 years - someone said I had to water every day (!) - someone told me I HAD to get a root feeder and fertilize - someone told me I better not use black drain tile or the sun will heat the tube up to the point of confusing the tree into an early spring.

Frustrating, I definitely agree that over-thinking is a big problem. At some point you have to trust that they know what to do. Unfortunately for me I've killed about 10 nice little trees to get to where I'm at and I of course hope to have no more losses. :)

Thanks!

Josh

p.s. the nylon I have is this 1-in. strapping a neighbor at the phone co. gets in rolls - seems to be pretty nice on the bark.

Also - I have plenty of drain tile from other projects, but thanks anyway!

The reason everything conflicts is that some sources are on top of it and others are full of it.

Root feeder=not quite useless, but not needed in your application.

We (Municipal forestry dept. I work for) plant aprox. 600 bare root trees/year. We stake them because we consider it a necessary evil. Evil because a tree WILL put on caliper more quickly if it's blown about by the wind. Necessary because we can't predict which of those 600 will be in too windy of a spot and hence should have been staked. We also have to deal with vandalism and stakes seem to deter that somewhat.

We use slit, white corrugated drain tile as rodent protection, for fall-planted stock.

All stakes are removed at the one year mark. Rodent guards are removed the spring after they are applied. If the area where the trees are planted is near fields and brushy areas, we will reapply rodent guards for one or two more winters, removing same during growing season.

Tree roots are shallow. No use blasting a lot of water below the main rooting zone. Water from the surface is a lot like rain, falls on surface.

Trees have been shown to develop roots faster in a low nitrogen environment. Root development is what you're after in a new transplant. Later, say 3 or 4 years, moderate rates of fertilizer may be of benefit. Someone is sure to chime in here and say you must never add a nutrient if soil test does not show a deficiency . The problem with this statement is that routine soil tests never test for nitrogen because it is too transient in the soil.......hard to pin down. Truth is, adding nitrogen to a system nearly always yields a positive growth response. This could be interpreted to mean it was in short supply. It depends also on soil. Deep, rich soil will almost always promote adequate growth on its own. Shaved off subsoil, like what many folks are left with in subdivisions, is another story.

Mulching is the single most cost-effective way to enhance tree survival and growth. The wider you can go, the better. Tree trunks are not tree roots. They are a different type of tissue which is not able to tolerate being constantly wet. Therefor, no mulch in contact with trunk.

Did I miss anything?

+oM

there is only one truism in life, in my experience ...

THE MORE YOU LEARN.. THE LESS YOU KNOW... lol ...

keep up the good work ... learn by experience ... and wing it ... lol ...

professionals like wisctom .. do things.. that a homeowner may not need to do ... because their hope is not to have to come back for a whole year .. only then to remove the stakes [or the dead tree] ...

a homeowner.. who can walk around the yard every day or two.. can observe and react accordingly .. so may not need to stake every single tree ...

and tom will never kill something with too much love .... lol

moving stock bare root is startling easy.. if done at the proper time ... for my zone 5 .. that is October or as soon as the soil thaws in late march or april .. and reduces a lot of the backbreaking aspects of tree moving ... research this.. and give it a try ... obviously you can emotionally deal with failures ...

i worried i might have dissed dibbit.. i did NOT intend such .. and sorry if i did ...

in pure sand .... i insert the tree.. refill half way ... saturate the sand... tamp gently .... refill to 90% re-saturate ... and work out air holes ... and then finish up ...

water plus sand is nearly concrete .... well worked around the roots ... NEARLY NEVER A REASON TO STAKE ....

i do NOT need to worry about compaction in sand... i do NOT have to worry about drainage in sand ....

the only time i stake is when the canopy is significantly larger than the bare roots ... and might act as a sail in strong winds ...

good luck

ken .. who is hopefully one of those on top of 'it' ...lol

I use a mixture of soybean meal, corn meal and alfalfa meal directly on thin layer of compost covering 4-5 feet wide hole followed by 3-4 inches of coarse hardwood mulch. Seemed to work great. I also used solution of fish hydrolysate and seaweed liquid to soil drench root zone. Gives a huge boost to soil biology around the root zone this way. in my opinion, it stimulates forest floor... Got a lot of growth out of it...

Again thanks, nice to know what people with more experience do.

My soil is pretty decent - nice heavy black. Our excavator did a nice job making sure there was a good base. In a couple places I planted trees when I dug about 10 inches it turned completely to sand (wisconsitom: I assume this is what you meant by Shaved off Subsoil), but I think about 3/4 of them are in all heavy-black. We have well water with sprinklers for the lawn and our hard water is extremely high in iron to the point of leaving stains on pretty much everything it contacts. The garden seemed to love the iron and the grass grew just fine so I'm hoping the trees won't complain.

I mulched each about 2 feet from the trunk and kept it off the trunk, thanks for explaining the reasoning. I originally had it on the trunk expecting it to provide some insulation from the cold winter.

@wisconsitom: if I understand you correctly, you only use rodent guards the first couple years, after that just leave em alone in the winter?

Thanks,

Josh

Yes Josh, once the bark gets thick and corky, critters don't see it as food any more.

Good luck...............+oM

I planted four new trees this summer and carefully watered them with a root feeder! And now I read this thread. Is there an emoticom for rivers of tears? Seriously, the reason I did this is that they are on an extremely steep (southern facing) slope, and I thought the root feeder would insure the water actually got to the roots instead of running down the hill. They look good at this point (a crabapple, a honey locust, a weeping blue Alaska cedar, and a serviceberry). This summer is gone, obviously. But I'll face the question again next summer. Does that slope argue in favor of a root feeder -- or not?

Well Clem, you can't argue with success! So did you place the probe on the uphill side of the rootball? I can see how that could work. Planting trees at the right depth on slopes is extra tricky. How did yours turn out?

+oM

Be mindful that plants can and often do grow despite a particular method being employed. This can create the false impression that the method was beneficial. Researchers use controls - untreated plants - to guard against this. If the ones without the pink neckties being hung from their branches grow as much - or more, as has happened with soil amendment investigations and top pruning experiments - than the ones with the neckties then it exposes the treatment as not beneficial.

I mostly put the probe on the uphill side of the rootball. Now and then, maybe every fourth time, I'd put it to the side. I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing, and I was just trying to cover my bases with a little variety! At this point, everything looks good. The trees were planted in late April and look healthy and unstressed. We'll see! Thanks for the input.

Bboy's right. You did something, then had success. Doesn't mean that what you did led to success.

I'm still wondering about the planting depth with your trees on a slope. That does get tricky. You almost always have to make a tiny terrace in the immediate vicinity of the tree. Perhaps this is what you have done.

Keep in mind too that the damage resulting from poor planting depth would NOT show up for the first year or so.

+oM

I'm worried about whether or not the trees were planted correctly, too. This is a new house for me, and I hired a landscape architect to do the hardscape and the trees. He did create a bit of a terrace for the two trees that are right on the ridge line (the other two are, I think, safely on flat ground before the dropoff). But he didn't build a little stone wall terrace for each of them, which I saw somewhere in a book or on the internet. He assured me they would be fine. I'm not happy to hear you say the damage might not show up for a couple of years! I have only a one-year guarantee.