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Plant a tree and it will grow with you throughout your whole life. You can return to it again and again – and sit a little under it with your back to the trunk. Maybe it will still stand there once you are dead and long gone.
When is the best time to plant a tree
You can plant trees in the spring and fall. There must be no frost in the soil, as there is in winter – and the soil must not be too dry, as it can be in summer. Optimal planting time is therefore:
• Spring: April
• Autumn: October (conifers), November and early December (needle and foliage).
Here’s how you do it
First, you need to get hold of a tree you would like to plant. Should it be a forest tree – or maybe a fruit tree? You can even sow the seed of a tree in a flowerpot, and care for it for a year. But you can also get a tree from someone, or buy one at a plant school.
Find out where you would like the tree to grow. It must have light and air around it. The soil should be good and loose and mulched.
There is a slight difference as to how a tree is planted in the forest and the garden:
First, I will tell you how to plant a garden tree – and afterwards how to plant a forest tree:
How to plant a tree in the garden
Dig a hole of 1 and ½ x 1 by ½ feet (or ½ by ½ meters). It should be so deep that the roots of the tree can easily be in it. You can see on the bark of the tree where the earth once went to before you bought it and took it out of its pot. There the ground surface must go to again. Loosen the soil at the bottom of the hole with your shovel so that the roots of the tree can easily penetrate further down.
Pour a bucket of water in the hole if necessary. It might be a good idea if you live in a dry place, and it doesn’t rain so often.
Put your tree in the middle of the hole at the right height – and cover the roots with soil. No roots must protrude. When the tree is standing, tread the ground well, all the way to the trunk, so that it stands firm.
Keep an eye on your tree for the first few years. Remove weeds and especially grass that grows densely around the tree. It steals the nutrients from the soil.
How to plant a forest tree
Many trees have to be planted in the forest – and therefore it usually has to go fast. The plants that typically are planted in forests are already 1 year old and they look like small sticks with roots on them. They come in large plant bags – with many hundreds in each. As with the garden trees, the roots of the small trees mustn’t become dry.
When you need to plant a tree in the woods, stick your shovel in the ground and tilt it back and forth a bit. Then you get a crack – or a crack in the ground. You carefully stick your little tree into it. Look at the bark of the tree and see how high the ground has gone before. That’s how it should be again. Make sure that your tree is vertical – and then tread the ground well around the tree. It must not be able to come loose, even if you pull a little on the tree.
Beware of the hourglass hole
When tilting with the spade, make sure that you do not make a hole that is shaped like an hourglass. If you step on the ground around the tree, it will hang with the roots in an air hole instead of in the ground. Then it dies.
Weed around your tree
Once the tree is planted, it will stretch its roots into the soil and begin to absorb water and nutrients. And it will stretch the branches up into the air so that the leaves can get light and make photosynthesis so that the tree can get energy and building blocks.
It is important for your tree that it does not compete with too many other plants for the nutrients in the soil – and for the light from above. Grass and other herbs will quickly grow up around the tree, stealing from the nutrients that are in the soil and perhaps even threatening to suffocate it. You can help your tree by weeding around it.
Conclusion
Now you know the basics of how to plant a tree, the only thing left is actually doing it. If you run into problems later on, maybe the tree gets sick or suffers from an infection from insects, then I recommend calling in professional tree surgeons, or an arborist, they usually know what is wrong and how to fix it.
