I am putting some fruit trees in and as all of you are very aware, if you look on 12 sites, you get at least 10 versions on how to plant your trees. Amend the soil, don’t amend the soil, fertilize, don’t fertilize, etc. You already know.
I called a buddy who runs a landscaping business, and they plant A LOT of trees, fruit, hardwood, privacy, they do it all. So I called him and asked him how deep to plant my trees as the nurseriries are confusing.
He said “I don’t agree with pretty much any of them. Plant the top of the root flare at the top of the soil line.” He also detailed a bunch of other things he did. I said I might forget a few, so he offered to send a video of “one of the better tree planting videos I’ve seen.”
I also noticed that trees of antiquity recommend the same thing in the diagram at the bottom of this page:
My question is, do you folks agree? How deep do you plant your fruit trees?
My buddy said much the same as that video. that basically, it doesn’t matter how long the rootstock sticks above the soil line, 3" or 12", doesn’t matter, plant the top of the crown at the top of the soil…
All I will say to this is this. In my every limited experience…I’ve been mounting up the soil when I plant to try to mitigate saturated soils after heavy rains.
What happens is that the soil compacts and settles after a few years anyway, so the trees end up close to grade eventually.
The exception is when I use galvanized fire rings to plant them in (open to the ground below).
Having said that, lots of the videos I’ve seen of people planting trees don’t have soil that looks at all like what mine does when I dig a hole… So for whatever that is worth.
Ideal planting depth is species dependent, and in some cases, individually dependent on where a graft union is located. Also dependent on hardiness zone… There are many good as well as bad answers.
Yes according to the latest literature he is spot on correct. Which is really surprising as the worst planted trees I ever saw were from landscape companies. I have many grafts in trees and some are four feet high. Doesn’t matter in the slightest. And yes flare those roots.
Nothing is 100 % correct. Some trees like figs it’s ok to plant deep other exceptions too. Figs can easily grow roots on trunk. Most trees cannot.
Depends on intention as well. Own root advocates plant very deeply. And eventually you get fruit as nature intended. I’m trying a few this way. I only do that on scions of medium to very vigorous growth though. With slow fruiting root stocks.
I would say that especially the apples, you want to make sure the rootstock remains rooted. Also consider certain rootstock is prone to forming burr knots (tries to make roots above ground) so burying most of those is better.
Otherwise stone fruits generally I’d say your friends advice given is applicable. It applies to almost all un-grafted trees grown in the proper zone.
I have found trees perfer to be replanted at thier original debth. I rarely do that though. I do not water my trees in the orchard, maybe a few 5 gallon buckets the first year if they look wilty. The nursery has ok soil, the orchard is clay and field stone. To keep the roots from drying out in the orchard they need to go a little deeper. It seems to me that the apples I plant deep take a bit longer to establish. I plant all of my stonefruit with the graft below the soil. I want self rooted trees for stonefruit, no dwarfing. Feeder roots need air, plant a tree too deep and it needs to form new feeders before it can really get going. So if planting a site you scraped clean to clay, it is helpful to suplement the soil around the feeder roots, or multch them. Tap roots can be shoved down in the clay…so it depends on your goals, species, soil, and irrigation. If not sure, plant the trees at thier original debth, don’t ammend the soil, and keep watered. Survival rate will be better, and the tree will recover from transplanting quicker. The first year is mostly a healing year and nutrients added in the planting hole will likely go to waste.
I try to follow current horticulture thought. And planting deep and even just mulching right up to bark is not advised. As far as I know trunks will not sprout roots. I think burying deep is a great way to encourage cankers. Deep planted trees struggle to grow roots to the surface. If you mulch heavy and move the mulch you will see the tree roots trying to grow into the mulch. They like to be near the surface.
This is current thought but many have their own thoughts, right or wrong.
What convinced me is talking a walk in any forest look at the biggest trees. They seem above grade, even mounded and they all have large root flares. No large trees look buried deep as those have long ago died.
I think planting high is the way to go, and watering thick while planting. That to reduce settling which is almost unavoidable. I mulch very deeply because my soil dries very quickly, so I don’t plant high to avoid poor drainage, rather to combat fast drainage with amending the soil with compost and much every year. Sometimes twice. I think as you can see, there isn’t a one right answer, and more a case by case basis which depends upon many factors from soil to climate to type of planting. Good luck, whatever you do you can have success with.
yup, plant in a shallow dip or on the surface of a mound. I have been doing the latter and trees are establishing well. Robert Kourik’s technique works well. https://robertkourik.com/tree-planting.html
Well I disagree here. Like I said I never saw a huge tree in the forest that didn’t have massive root flares and even looks mounded as the ground around the tree is lower. The main purpose of using rootstock is it’s the easiest way to clone trees, a cultivar chosen for having exceptional traits. Since most trees are hybrids they don’t come true to seed. Those that do, we use seeds. Such as the Lovell peach. Which is a nice cling peach used for canning for decades dried very well too. Most peaches are susceptible to root knot nematodes. Lovell is not at all. They leave it alone. So while we are passing around our best trees we might as well pick a disease resistant and very hardy peach with stabilized genes as a rootstock. And you can’t grow rootstocks on a root stock. You need to use seeds. Many rootstocks are fine trees or good species examples. Dwarfing and such is a secondary consideration. Since I control height by pruning I don’t pay much attention to rootstock. Standard or dwarfing look the same after I prune them so either one is fine with me.one exception is sweet cherries. Those are just wild beasts you can’t control. I need dwarfing to keep it at 7-8 feet. You look at them hard they branch even on dwarfing rootstocks. Amazing unique trees. I love my little sweet cherry
I can see an argument for planting deep with a rootstock on some species. If a tree can grow roots easily, many cannot. Often the rootstock is just used to clone and some want the tree on its own roots. Often to prevent loss of the tree if top dies off. Some come back from the roots like figs. But I don’t see any reason to plant deep trees on their own roots. What am I missing?
The Canadian bush cherries are interesting. The bush form has everything to do with the roots. So it has to be on its own roots to be a bush. If you graft it, it will grow like any other tart cherry and it will be a tree not a bush. They are sold both ways.
Mine is on its own roots.
One of the common ways to grow rootstocks is to chop the top low to produce branches then burry the branches so that they root. The branches with thier roots are cut away from the original trunk and used as rootstocks.
There is no reason to plant a self rooted tree deeper, the point is to get the tree to self root before the rootstocks dies or the graft fails. It’s easier to graft a tree than root a scion. Another reason to burry the graft is when the scion has more cold hardiness than the rootstock.
Ok but peach trees are not going to root if buried deep. Also I never heard of making rootstock by rooting cuttings. I don’t know of any rootstock made like that. Can you give examples? And where can I buy that rootsrock?’?
