By: Stephen Drummonsy
Submitted: 2010-08-20 09:05:34 | Word Count: 912
Installing new plants and getting them growing fruitfully isn't hard, nor is it as complicated as many may like you to believe. Is it as simple as digging a hole and setting the plant in.
Balled in burlap (B and B).
Thoroughly check the ball around the plant that you have purchased. Did the diggers wrap cord all-around the ball to carry the plant safely? If they did, you should at the very least cut the cord and lay it in the floor of the opening, or remove it totally. Pay close attention round the stem on the plant where it emerges at the root ball, diggers often wrap the twine around the stem quite a few times as they tie the ball. It's particularly important for the main reason that if ever the string is nylon, it won’t rot and can choke and kill the plant two or three years along the line.
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Once B and B plants are kept at the nursery for unlimited durations of time it will become essential to re-burlap them if the underside begins to rot before the plants are sold. If ever the plant that you purchase is re-burlaped it's always possible that there can be nylon strings relating to both layers of burlap, check the stem carefully. Provided the nylon string is removed from around the stem of this plant, it it’s essentially harmless around the remainder of the ball, and you will not have to do away with it.
What type of soil do you think you're planting in?
In case your soil is heavy clay, I would advise you ought to raise the planting bed at least 8” with decent rich topsoil. In the event you can't do that for any reason, bed in the plant in order that at least 2” or more of the root ball is above the existing ground and pile the soil over the root ball. Take into account that plants installed in this way can dry out over the summer time, but planting them flush with your ground in heavy clay can mean the roots will likely be too wet at other times of the year.
The professionals recommend that when planting in clay soil you dig the opening wider and deeper than the root ball and fill around and under the plant with loose organic substance. It sounds like a really grand idea doesn't it? Some professionals also advise you ought to dig the hole extra deep and put one or two inches of gravel on the base for drainage. Where do they imagine this water is going to drain to? It will actually sit in the bottom of that hole.
When water reaches our newly planted tree surrounded by loose organic matter, it is going to seep in until the planting hole is totally full of water. Through the use of this planting technique we've actually developed what's known as a French drain around our poor tiny plant that cannot tolerate its roots being starved of oxygen for extended intervals of time. As the base of this hole is clay, even though we have added gravel for drainage, there's nowhere for that water to travel so it lays in the bottom of the hole, this starves the plant of oxygen which means that it is likely to suffer and porbably die.
In the event you are unable to raise the planting bed using topsoil, and you're planting in clay, I suggest that you just install the root ball no less than 2” above ground and backfill round the ball with the soil that you removed when you created the hole. Backfilling with the clay soil that you just removed is in fact like building a dam to keep excess water from permeating the root ball of your newly planted tree. The plant isn’t likely to thrive with this poor soil, but at the least it can have the chance to stay alive.
Container grown plants are much simpler.
Follow the principles for depth of planting as described earlier in this article. Before gently taking away the plant from your container check the drain holes in the base of the container for roots that may be growing from the holes. If there are any, cut them off so they will not help it become tricky to get the plant out of the container.
Check the root mass whilst you hold it inside your hand. Sometimes when plants have been growing inside a container for an extended time the roots begin growing in a very circular pattern round the root mass. This just isn't good, and you ought agitate these roots prior to planting to help it break this circular pattern. You should take a knife and actually make about three vertical slices at the top of the root mass towards the bottom. It will stimulate new roots that should grow outward into the soil of the garden. Or it is possible to just use your fingers and loosen the roots that are circling the root mass forcing them outward before you start planting them.
Author Resource:-
I have always had the gardens of my properties that I own maintained by exactly the same gardener london company and over the years they've saved me a lot of money, just by giving me some very useful advise.