Top tips for planting your trees!
Fleming’s Nurseries Qld take great pride in producing quality trees for your home garden. We are very proud of the trees we produce and are excited to share them with you. We would love to give you some advice/hints to make sure that they are able to achive everything you want, and that you get many, many years of pleasure from them.
Fleming’s Nurseries Qld take great pride in producing quality trees for your home garden. We are very proud of the trees we produce and are excited to share them with you.
We would love to give you some advice/hints to make sure that they are able to achieve everything you want, and that you get many, many years of pleasure from them.
Planting your tree
Planting and making sure your tree grows is really quite simple, all you need to do is understand a few simple things about the tree, then it will be child's play.
The most common questions we often get asked are:
- How big a hole should we dig?
- How deep do I need to plant it?
- How should we prepare the soil before we plant?
- How much water does it need?
So, let's help with answers to these questions.
- How big should I dig the hole?
- In all honesty, as long as the rootball fits into the hole it’s big enough, but if you want to help the tree establish, dig the hole roughly twice the size of the root ball, and about 100mm deeper than the root ball.
- BUT, once you have the hole dug out, refill the bottom with loose soil.
- How deep should I plant the tree?
- Quite simply, the top of the root ball is soil depth, so make sure you can see the potting mix at the top of the root ball when the tree is planted.
- We always recommend building a little ‘dam’ around the top of the rootball, so when you apply water it soaks down into the rootzone.
- How should the soil be prepared before the tree is planted?
- Nothing at all.
- Preparation of the soil before planting is not necessary, the tree will grow in your site soil, and as long as the tree is planted and cared for once planted, it will flourish.
- How much water does it need?
- Make sure you water the tree in, once planted.
- This is a very difficult question to give an accurate answer to because all climates and microclimates are different.
- The most important part of watering is understanding where the water needs to be applied.
- The tree will not be able to access any moisture from your site soil for approximately 6 Months, therefore it is reliant on the roots within the rootball to access water, so the water application needs to be into the rootball, not the surrounding site soil.
- Plan to give your tree approximately 2lts of water, directly into the rootball when you water.
Some other things to consider
- Tree labels - Should be removed at the time of planting, if not removed they can damage the tree.
- Sunburn - When planting your tree during the warmer months young limbs can be susceptible to sunburn. Speak with your local nursery about how you can protect your tree from sunburn.
- Frost - Young trees can also be susceptible to frost. If you are in a frost-prone area, you may need to consider frost protection.
- Mulch – In simple terms, mulch should be viewed as a weed suppressant and a ‘blanket’ to keep the full sun off the roots.
- NEVER place mulch up against the tree trunk.
- Irrigation - Water is the most important factor in tree establishment.
- During the establishment phase (the first 6 Months) water the tree approximately once per week, making sure the water penetrates the rootball.
- Fertilising – In the establishment phase (the first 6 Months) the tree can only take up fertlilizer from the rootball, if you wish to give the tree some extra love, place a small amount of fertilizer over the rootball prior to watering, so the fertilizer leeches down into the root zone.
