Tree Planting Guide

The following tree planting guide information is given courtesy of Penelope O'Sullivan, author of The Homeowner’s Complete Tree & Shrub Handbook: The Essential Guide to Choosing, Planting, and Maintaining Perfect Landscape Plants. (Storey Publishing, 2007). This is part one of our two-part interview with this author.

Author Penelope O'Sullivan

Before you buy plants or start digging holes for new trees and shrubs, figure out exactly what you’d like new plantings to do for you. Then make a plan.

Begin by sketching your lot lines and the property’s main features. Include the house and any trees and planting beds you intend to keep. Add measurements and a North-pointing arrow to the drawing.

Now you’re ready to site new plants where they can best serve their purpose. Planning takes extra time up front, but saves you significant time and money in the long run.

Think about hardiness first. To survive, trees must withstand average temperatures in your region. Also consider a tree’s mature height, width and growing requirements (light, soil, moisture, climate)and see if they fit in your site plan. My book, The Homeowner’s Complete Tree & Shrub Handbook, includes the mature height, width, and required growing conditions for 357 reliable trees and shrubs.

If you plant a huge tree too close to your house, you may have to replace it quickly or spend a lot of money pruning to keep the tree small or to keep branches away from the house. Growth rate matters if you want your plants to grow fast or stay small, and decorative interest also counts if you want hard working plants that look good and stay healthy in every season.

There’s nothing scary about pruning if you understand why you’re doing it. Pruning can support a plant’s beauty, improve its health, promote public safety, and encourage new blooms. In most cases, the best way to prune informal woody plants is to take your cue from their natural shape.

Start by removing dead, damaged, diseased, rubbing, or crossing branches. In general, pruning deciduous plants when dormant (after leaf drop) helps you see their structure and reduces pest and disease problems. If you grow woodies for flowers, you can time pruning to promote maximum blooms: trim plants like witch-hazel, forsythia, magnolia, and crabapple that bloom on old growth right after flowering; prune plants that bloom on the current season’s growth such as glossy abelia, elderberry, spirea, crape myrtle and butterfly bush when dormant (late winter or early spring). Prune conifers and broadleaf evergreens in spring.

Technically, trees make their own food. A fertilizer’s job is to replenish depleted soils with elements needed for plant growth, since garden trees usually don’t grow in conditions that mimic where they exist in the wild.

The key to proper soil fertilization is soil testing, which tells you how much, if any, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and micronutrients your soils may need. Particularly when using synthetic fertilizers, follow package directions to avoid harming your plants and contaminating the environment.

Fertilize in late fall when trees are dormant or in early spring just before new growth starts. Organic gardeners use compost to improve soil health and structure. Organic fertilizers, which add nutrients and organic matter to the soil, include composted pelletized manure, liquid fish and seaweed emulsion, bonemeal, bloodmeal, cottonseed meal and alfalfa meal.

Slideshow:Tree Identification

• When buying plants at a nursery, choose single-stem trees with straight trunks that flare towards the base and limbs spaced evenly around the trunk.
• Multi-stemmed trees and shrubs should look handsome and full from every direction.
• Look for sound wide branch unions, not big limbs crammed against the trunk.
• Select plants with clean leaves and without dark spots, discoloration, or insect holes.
• Moist fibrous roots are better than woody pot-bound roots.
• Avoid tall, leggy plants.
• Don’t buy plants with dead, injured, big crossed and rubbing branches, split bark, trunk damage, two competing leaders, signs of insect infestation, or dry broken rootballs.

For more tree planting guide information, please read the following articles available on this site:

• Fast Growing Trees
• Dwarf Trees
• How to Plant a Tree

• Winter Squash Plants Photos
• Sugar Maple Tree Picture
• What Plants Grow in Winter

• Gardenia Plant Care
• Jasmine
• How to Build an Outdoor Fireplace
• Honeysuckle
• Maple Tree Diseases

• Fast Growing Trees
• Maple Tree Planting
• Category:Trees
• Guide to Shrubs
• How to Plant a Tree