TREE PLANTING

Planting trees is an easy and effective way to beautify your property, provide shade in summer and wind protection in winter and enhance privacy, all while increasing real estate values at the same time. Since a tree is such a visible part of the landscape, care must be taken to ensure proper growth conditions are maintained.  A tree is far more difficult - and expensive - to replace, once mature in the landscape, than most shrubs.  However, with some advance planning, trees, too, can be easily maintained.

When To Plant Trees

Climate plays a deciding role when determining the appropriate planting time.  Newly planted trees do best when exposed to moderate temperature and rainfall and they need time to root and acclimatize before the onset of intense heat and dryness of summer or the freezing temperatures of winter. In Colorado, spring and early fall are generally the best planting seasons.

How To Plant A Tree

While planting each of these different types of trees differs in the details, all trees eventually end up in a hole, but not any old hole will do.  The most common mistake when planting a tree is a digging hole, which is both too deep and too narrow.  Too deep and the roots don’t have access to sufficient oxygen to ensure proper growth.  Too narrow and the root structure can’t expand sufficiently to nourish and properly anchor the tree.

As a general rule, trees should be transplanted no deeper than the soil in which they were originally grown.  The width of the hole should be at least three times the diameter of the root ball or container or the spread of the roots in the case of bare root trees.  This will provide the tree with enough worked earth for its root structure to establish itself.

Transplanting Trees

There is always danger in moving plant material from one location to another.  Root material is sacrificed and, depending on the previous state of the plant, this can be a severe stress.   If necessary, it is possible to transplant trees from one area of your property to another. The key lies in ensuring that the tree to be transplanted has a good healthy root ball and that the tree and ball together are not unmanageably heavy.

• Start by tying the branches together loosely.
• Then dig a two-foot deep trench around the tree at least one foot larger than the size of the root ball (or as much intact viable root material as practical). Once the trench is dug, undercut around the shrub. Carefully prune the roots extending from the ball as you dig down.
• When the ball is partially exposed, begin to wrap the ball in burlap, starting from the base of the tree down, using twine to secure the wrapping. Keep digging until the ball is undercut and sitting on a soil pedestal.

• Then carefully tilt the tree and ball and finish wrapping and securing the burlap underneath.

• Then carefully tilt the tree and ball and finish wrapping and securing the burlap underneath.

Serving All of Greater Metro Denver
Since 1995