Here in NY I plant bare root trees in my nursery and size them up with only the help of mulch- no irrigation. In general, even with mulch, timely irrigation will help things size up more quickly, even after the first year, if you suffer drought, which is common. It is spring drought that is most dwarfing. This year my bare roots that I had sized up for a couple of years and then moved definitely suffered. Worst early spring drought in decades! Olpea, I've read in soil text books that mulch is not as affective as people assume at stopping evaporation, in that soil itself has a similar affect. The wind and sun only works on the top couple inches, apparently. My text books could be wrong, of course (the two I have on my shelf are 25 years old), but mulch works in many ways to retain water. It even creates it (probably not much) as it breaks down and the, uh, carbos are released from the hydrate, so to speak. I wonder if mulch doesn't also feed and increase the affect of the mychorizal fungus, augmenting that symbiosis which is known to help trees withstand drought as the hyphae increase (extend?) water access for the tree.

Thanks, everyone! I think we had an internet miracle. This morning I went out to run the sprinklers and discovered a light haze of green everywhere :) It's not mold or pollen, it's tiny little hairs of grass. Even better news, it's raining this morning! re: Bag instructions ... The bag said that with the special coating you can even miss a day of watering and it will germinate. Not that I believe that. The main reason we picked this kind of seed was that apparently birds don't like to eat it. So far that has been true, I have not seen any birds snacking on seed. re: Straw, no straw, mulch pellets ... I looked at the straw mats they sell at the big box stores, they are super expensive if you're covering 1/2 acre. The mulch pellets were at least as much as another round of seed and I was concerned the dog would try to eat them, so I went with raking the seed in lightly (using the back of the rake) and hoped for the best. But - we want to start a fresh lawn in the front yard this fall (you know, at the right time to plant) and will use the mulch then. The dog isn't usually in the front yard. And when he is, he's too busy terrorizing the chipmunks that live near some bushes to think about eating mulch. re: timers - I couldn't find a timer that would run 6 hoses in sequence. Our water pressure only handles 2 impact sprinklers in series and we have 10 sprinklers (2 are on their own hoses b/c of where they are). We bought a ton of the super-cheap 50' hoses for this year (and next). I figure after 2 years they will fall apart but we needed 15 of them to have enough hose to reach everything. Thank you for your responses, I am definitely doing the front yard the smart way. If it weren't for the dog (and the mud in the fall/winter) I would have waited for the backyard as well. Last note - DH convinced me to buy an electric tiller from Lowes as part of the project & that thing is awesome! I wouldn't have expected it to do much of anything but it really can churn through soil & make it nice & fluffy, even where the bulldozer tracks were. A rented tiller is faster, but if anyone is ever looking for a way to till an area over several nights or weekends then this thing might do the trick (under $200, too). It can also slice hoses like butter.

Depends upon what sort of 'nasty clay soil' you have, for one thing. I have hard red clay soil and love it. New transplants, which we would not Plant at this time of year by the way, would probably be watered at the root ball every day for a couple of weeks, then tapering off gradually. Our clay, though dense, drains well. Clay soil that is almost any color except red or orange might need some real work before a planting project can be successful. Soil amendments should not be added, pretty much regardless of what kind of native soil you have, so that's a good thing. Adding those amendments to the hole and backfill creates all kinds of problems. Watering frequency also depends upon whether the plants were container grown plants or B&B. Containerized plants need a LOT more attention upon transplanting than those that are field dug. There's about a billions times the root surface area to take care of. Are you getting any rain there? That can make a big difference in how much you need to jump in and hand water. Did the person who planted the trees install a berm around the root ball of the trees upon planting? If so, you could simply fill that berm every day for a couple of weeks. The water will be concentrated on the root ball itself, which is what you want initially. Later on, you can water a larger area, for a longer period of time, but your goal should be to wean the tree off extra watering in a few months time. By the way, don't count on your irrigation system to do this watering for you. If you water as much and as frequently as your trees need it, your grass will suffer terribly.

I guess there is no definitive answer. There are just too many variables--soil type, kind of tree (tap roots/surface roots), sun and wind exposure, high/low ground, mulched or not. . . I would think 3-year-old trees are pretty much established; however, a tree or shrub with a shallow root system will dry out quicker. The usual answer is an inch per week, but if your soil is sandy, that would not be enough; if heavy, it would probably be a waste. Probably a better answer is that, if a day after you water, the soil still feels wet below the surface--but isn't muddy-- you probably watered it correctly. Sometimes, by the time a tree is showing stress--leaves curling and feeling dry, it is hard to get them back up to speed, on the other hand, some shrubs respond almost immediately. You basically have to use your intuition and not beat yourself up for any mistakes. Hardy trees have amazing resilience--non-native plants will suffer first. Hopefully you received some of yesterday's rain. Guess they got seven inches in some parts of Wisconsin. My yard got 3 tenths. Sigh. . . a.