Hi thisisme, thanx for the response. I tried to follow the directions as closely as possible. I have even had a few conversations with a lady from that company, Cynthia was her name I think. The trees were cared for just as stated on their website in regard to their arrival. I wasn't able to plant them right away, so they were unboxed, and placed in upright with the roots still wraped as they were shipped in my garage. My soil in this area is quite sandy so I didn't feel the need to add additional sand to the mix. The water does not puddle when it does rain. If I fill up the area around the tree (fill the baracaded area built while planting) it is all drained within 15 min. Regular waterings are not conducted in this manner. I let my water hose trickle into the area around the trees. I have let my water hose trickle for up to an hour this past weekend and the soil seems to drain so fast the baracaded area never fills up. The hole that each tree was placed in was quite large. They were dug approx 2.5 - 3 feet wide, and several inches deeper than the root required. I then sorta loosely put dirt in the bottom of the hole that formed a cone shape. Then placed the roots down into this cone of loose dirt. I had a piece of pvc pipe that I used to measure across the top of the hole to verify that the depth was not below or above where the previous dirt line was on the trunk. I finished filling the hole and lightly tamped down with my foot. The folks at Willis instructed me last year that I was possibly over watering my trees, so this time around I tapered off the watering from every day to every 5-6 days this time. You thinking that I tapered off the watering too much? Would it be benificial to re-plant these trees using the Mycorrhizal Fungi? I did not use this a two to three weeks ago when I planted the trees.

pam ... let me sum it up for you .... YOU DONT KNOW WHAT COLD IS .... lol it was 48F yesterday .... and last night down to 7F with a 25 mph wind.. -15F wind chill ... ground thawing one day ... enough to let the 6 inches of snow disappear .. no clay here ... and the ground frozen solid today ... QUIT worrying about dormant plants being.. what you call cold ... until you get below zero .. which most likely wont happen in z8 .. and if it does... YOU WILL HAVE A LOT OF OTHER PROBLEMS TO WORRY ABOUT .... other than your darn trees... lol ... 78 of 80 .. good work ... and perhaps it didnt register ... but forget about a couple hot days.. this time of year .... ambient AIR temp is not relevent .... its SOIL TEMP .... worry about a week long heat wave.. but a couple days ... most likely isn't going to warm the soil significantly .... as noted .... the wetter and colder the better .. subject to your hands aching from being too cold .... in spring.. if the soil is workable... and soil freezing is past .... its time to plant .... for me .. that is april in z5 .... i will still get frosts thru late may ... and maybe even a snow in april .... but the ground will not refreeze .. so again ... ambient air temp is not an issue with dormant trees .... a very hard late frost can be a problem .... but it isnt worth worrying about ... IMHO .... all you have to worry about .... is that bare root stock gets into soil or medium ... they are NOT to be left standing in water for too long .... TIMING IS EVERYTHING .. and mail order sources mail them at the proper time ... the good ones do anyway .. lol ... just get it done... good luck ken

Dan, I don't think the authors are recommending doing away with container-grown stock. I think they are saying that bare-rooting, as part of the planting process and done by people trained in doing it, has advantages (and disadvantages). They are going through the process to correct root problems caused by traditional growing methods, not to prevent the problems from occurring to start with. Also, I think most of the research and debate is concentrated on larger stock (mostly B&B), rather than smaller, containerized stock. The guy that brought this article back to my attention claims to be a totally supporter of bare-rooting smaller stuff, but has concerns about calls for doing it across the board for different species, to larger B&B material, and by the nursery industry with untrained labor.

Ken, you can download a free PowerPoint viewer at the Microsoft Download Center. I'm sure there are other freeware programs out there that will do the same thing. Cool pic of the cedar stump/roots. It's also interesting that fairly large roots from another tree can be seen in the excavation but the tree is not shown in the pictures and doesn't appear to be overhanging the site at all. That seems to show how roots really can extend out more than twice as far as the canopy. Here is a link that might be useful: PowerPoint Viewer at the Microsoft Download Center