Help please! Difference in planting bare root vs potted

General Fruit Growing
1

I always buy bare root trees and stick them in native soil - no amendments and let the tree establish that way. It has worked well for me.

But now I have a problem. I have some bare root trees I bought (healed in a cool spot in some moist shavings for last 45 days…) I am unable to plant them in the ground in the next 4 months due to some personal issues…

Can I plant them in pots for now? My worry is the tree will get used to the potted soil and not do well when I plant in my native clay soil.

After 4 months can I remove tree from pot, remove all potting oil and plant it like a bare root in summer? Or wait until next winter and plant it bare root then? (to avoid getting root bound…)

Or should I just give it away and get new bare root trees next year?

2

Yes, pot it up and then root wash it when you’re ready to plant it out. Do just as you have been, plant the tree directly into native soil with no potting media still on the roots. Fertilizer and compost can be spread on the soil surface or between soil and mulch but should not be mixed into the soil.

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Depending on the type of fruit tree, you may want to consider waiting until the tree goes dormant next winter before bare-rooting it. By bare rooting it and then planting it during the summer, the tree will be in for a double shock - having its soil stripped away (which will do some damage to the roots no matter how careful you are) and then getting put into a less hospitable environment, all during the summer heat. Unless you have a fig tree or some other very hard type, I’d wait. The tree won’t be hurt by staying in a pot a year.

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Get some smart pots for it.

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Thanks all. These are persimmon trees and came with a lot of roots 12" long and very thick. how many gallon smart pot should I get? It it needs to stay in the pot until end of the year?

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If that big, probably 7 gallon.

They air-prune the roots so you don’t get root circling. It creates a dense, fibrous root system that just takes right off.

It makes it much easier to just pop them in the ground, although I still try to wash at least the external part of the media off.

Here’s a picture of a maple that I had in a smart pot last year, that I planted in the ground. It’s not a fruit tree, but same concept.

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image2138×2851 3.54 MB

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I also think you could go the smart pot method but use your native soil (If you can dig it out) and put a layer of perlite or lava rocks on the bottom of the pot and keep them elevated so they don’t get waterlogged since its clay, When you go to plant just cut a X under the smart pot or remove the fabric pot carefully and have a bunch of your soil broken up and some sitting in a wheel barrow after potting it up wash it pretty roughly to mix the soils and then top fill in anything that washed away. You would have to be careful but i do not believe you would end up with transplant shock if you did this in the fall or winter.
I ordered trees before i actually finished purchasing my house and it ended up having mold on the inspection so we did not buy, two orders i could not cancel and had to do this with 2 peaches and a few random trees / shrubs and it worked out very well.

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Thanks all! that’s giving me good options.

@BG1977 very nice tree, look at those roots!
@RichardRoundTree Will try to see if I can dig up some dirt to mix in with the potting mix…

In case I am unblocked and able to get the potted trees in the ground by early April… should I go for it and plant it or wait until December.? The persimmon trees are still dormant here but will break dormancy soon.