Fall Tree Planting
Fall planting of trees and shrubs is typically our largest planting of the year. We work on planting a lot of our core plant species that we sell in our nursery. These include planting Blue Spruce, Norway Spruce, and White spruce trees. We also pot up Arborvitae, some Junipers, Rhododendrons, PJM’s, Cherry Laurels, Mugo Pines and Dogwood trees. This Fall we will pot up around 1,800 plants in total.
Fall Tree Planing Part 1
Fall Planting Part 2
Planting Spruce Trees in the Fall
The Spruces and Arborvitaes trees are what you could call border plants in that people buy them 5, 10 and 20 at a time to create borders between themselves and neighbors. People also plant spruce trees to create windbreaks in a field or open area. They are very effective for this purpose and look great.
The Norway spruce is our number one selling tree here in New Jersey as people know it’s very deer resistant. We have an overpopulation of deer and they will just devour certain plants. Fortunately, the Norway spruce tree is not one of them, the deer just don’t like them. Rutgers lists the Norway Spruce a Seldom Severely Damaged in their Deer Resistant Plant List.
Planning for Fall Tree Planting
Our fall shrub and tree planting really begins back in the summer when we start placing orders with growers. In total, we use about six different growers to obtain all the plant species that we want . Ordering the same species of plants and trees from different growers is common for us as there are differences among the same species. We have even on occasion changed our main source of grower for a certain species. For example, we buy Norway Spruces trees from three different growers. One has a great price on very small Norway spruce trees, while one has the best more mature trees. We plant some very small bare root plants knowing it will take 4 to 5 years before we have a tree or plant we can sell. The smaller plants cost less are easier to plant but do take a long time to become large enough to sell.
Ordering for Fall Tree Planting
A sample of an online order form with some prices for 100+ tree orders.
We know some growers will run out of plants in the size that we may want them. Thus, we order Fall trees and plants by about the June before with October delivery dates. We buy many spruce trees that are what are called 2–2 transplants. What this means is the plant was started from seed four years ago. It was grown for two years in very tightly packed beds with other small seedlings. Then these seedlings are allowed to grow to a size large enough to transplant. The growers plant hundreds of thousands or even millions of seeds each year. Their beds will be packed with small 2 to 6 inch tall seedlings. Once they are large enough to transplant, you can buy the small plants and they are generally sold as one or two year seedlings.
The growers will go through and either thin out these beds, selling some and transplanting some to give them space to grow. In year 3, the grower will again thin the beds selling the 3 year old trees or 2–1 transplants. To get to 3 or 4 years old the trees do end up being transplanted at some point. This provides an environment where the trees will have sufficient room to grow. Then they will grow another one or two years to 18 to 24 inches tall. So we like to buy 2–2 transplants as they are larger, we think a bit tougher, and are only 2 to 3 years away from being a tree of sufficient size that we can sell.
Potting up Trees and Shrubs
Our process of potting up these plants and trees each Fall is fairly simple. Once the fall comes, the plants we ordered will arrive, and Fall planting time will begin. We’ve already ordered our plants and they will generally arrive the week that we have requested. Since we take multiple shipments in the Spring and Fall, we want to spread them out and be ready for them as they arrive. This doesn’t always go exactly as planned however it’s all manageable.
We have, of course already pre-ordered all of our containers, have plenty of potting mix ready to go, and since we fertilize when potting, we will have slow release fertilizer on hand. See our Backyard Nursery Resources Guide for all the supplies you will need. When you are ready in advance, the actual day(s) of potting runs much smoother . Since we use mostly trade 3 gallon, non–woven, fabric containers, we even remove the packaging on these in advance and have them ready to go.
See our article on Potting Up Plants for some additional tips on planting trees and shrubs in pots.
Fall Tree Planting is all Bare Root
When we receive bare root plants, they come in a boxes with the roots wrapped in a damp medium like shredded paper. You will want to open these up right away and re-wet the medium. Never let the roots dry out. Depending on timing you night be potting these plants up for up for a few days. Just keep the roots moist and the plants in a cool place.
Get your Potting Mix Ready
We plant a lot of plants up in the Fall so we prepare,in advance a lot of Potting Mix. For Spruce trees we use a mix that is 2 parts decomposed Humus, 2 parts of well ground Hardwood Bark and 1 or even less parts Perlite. We express this in “Parts” as for you it could be pails, wheel barrow loads, or bucket loader scoops. This mix give us some good organic value in the hardwood bark and humus. The bark drains really well but will retain a good amount of moisture. Perlite and also the bark, lighten up the mix, provides good drainage and won’t compact.
Fall tree planting is ideal
Why plant in the Fall? We think there are several good reasons.
- Great weather, we plant about mid October in New Jersey. Temperatures are great!
- Plants get settled in their pots, are dormant and won’t see any hot, dry, Summer conditions for months.
- Availability, we have less trouble getting the plants we want in the Fall.
- The plants we receive generally have good growth potential for the Spring and its like getting a plant 6 months older than we paid for.
How many trees did we plant this Fall?
We average about 2,000 trees and shrubs planted each Spring and Fall. We split all this up into about 4 shipments each season, 8 to 10 per year. This way we can plant about 500 plants in a long weekend, sometime bringing in some extra help. 3 to 5 people can plant 300 to 500 plants in a single day. One person can plant about 100 to 150 per long day! Spreading things out helps you stay on schedule when the inevitable bad weather or delayed shipment happens.