So it seems the general thought is to plant trees in as much native soil as possible. Does that mean I should wash off all the soil that came in the container before planting?
I was pretty discouraged by citrus over the past couple of years but have been reinspired by how well my Gold Nugget in ground and Kishu in a pot have been doing the past few months.Thanks everyone for the advice on those!
I’d like to buy another mandarin but it will be going in some not so great dirt. Bare root it or just take the container off and plant?
Do not take any of my advise because I really have not clue what I’m talking about. Wait for an expert to stop.by and give their advise. My uneducated opinion would be to keep the soil that came in the pot. I think it would be okay to give the tree a nice shake by the trunk to free the roots a bit. Then plant it into a prepared hole of native soul that’s been turned over and broken up well. Score the outside rim of the hole so that there are not smooth shovel marks, otherwise roots will tend to circle rather than penitrate into the surrounding ground.
I bought a cherry this year and the soil it was in was pretty nasty. It was still very dormant so I bare root it myself and planted out. It’s waking up now and seems to be fine.
For citrus, I like to take all excess soil after giving the root ball a nice comb over with a garden claw. FWIW, Four Winds sells bare root trees grown in a #5 container. They don’t see removing all soil as a problem.
Speedster, Don’t take this wrong, but that’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen written on this forum. Laughed until I cried. You sure lightened my day! Hope you had a great Easter!
You can do either. Some species of edible trees are considered too sensitive to disturb their soil though I am not sure I believe it.
You will destroy a fair amount of minute feeder roots in removing container soil. This results in transplant shock as the feeder roots need be replaced. Be sure to spread the roots and get the air pockets out of the soil around the roots.
The downside of a container soil is the nursery can use either a nutrient based one or non- or low nutrient based one. The latter is pretty typical. When it eventually breaks down the soil level can fall away from the roots around the trunk where the container soil resided. Only seen it happen a few times. Tamped soil in to replace the gap and they seemed unharmed in dry Phoenix, AZ.
I bought an apple that was severely root bound with roots round and round the container.
I decided to bare root it with a garden hose and string the roots out as long as they would go.
I ended up with two foot diameter roots and it’s the best tree that I have today.
This is a delayed addition, but I thought I would add my experience. I noticed that a number of of my nursery bought trees were dying, and most of them had many mole hills. When I did autopsies, the roots were eaten away. I guess that’s from voles that travel in the mole tunnels. This almost never happens with my bare root trees. I wondered if moles are attracted to the container compost.
So last fall, when I bought a container Gravenstein apple, I hosed off all of the planting compost, and planted the tree immediately in the native soil. That was October, so it was not a hot day. It didn’t lose a single leaf, and this year bloomed profusely and set a number of fruits. It’s growing great. No mole issues, either.
Since then I bought a dawn redwood, and a laburnum, and did the same for them. The laburnum was 3 weeks ago, in full leaf. I did get it into the native soil as quick as possible. It hasn’t lost any leaves either. The dawn redwood was dormant at the time. It’s doing fine as well. I also have done that for some other plants, to do away with a planting medium : soil interface. So far, no problems.
I’ve done that. I bought a container tree that I knew was rootbound. I sprayed all of the soil off and the roots must have reach a couple feet in every direction once unwound. It’s doing great!
Had to make a big hole.
