Monday, January 19, 2009
THERE’S no shortage of reasons for planting trees, though perhaps the most compelling one is the satisfaction from watching one of these great plants flourish and grow.
I’m lucky enough to own a couple of acres of land and I’ve been doing it all my life.
But I have to admit not all the trees I’ve planted have flourished and some have died. So I thought I’d pass on a few of the things that I’ve learned from my mistakes.
Normally the best time to plant is in early winter. But so far this has not been a normal winter. Where I live we had snow in November followed by a long period of hard frost and drought. These are the worst possible planting conditions.
But the weather now seems to be getting damper and milder and there’s still time. The main reason for winter planting is that deciduous trees and shrubs are dormant at this time of year. Bare-rooted plants must go into the ground when they’re dormant.
This is not as crucial with container-grown trees and shrubs or with evergreens but even they do better if they’re planted in winter.
It’s not always easy to tell when deciduous plants break dormancy because it normally happens some weeks before there are any visible signs of growth. Birches in Ireland break dormancy in late February, about three weeks before the first buds open. The sap is already rising in elder trees, but for most other species you’ve still got a few weeks.
Assuming you’re planting in a vandal-free environment, the most common cause of failure is drought stress. Trees require a huge amount of water to flourish and they have to compete for it with other plants. If you’re watering newly-planted trees ‘little-and-often’ is not the way to go — it’s much better to use huge amounts, up to 50 litres, of water once a fortnight.
I’ve a friend who plants a lot of trees and is very good at it and he puts a short coil of flexible drainage pipe about 10 centimetres in diameter into the planting hole. One end of the pipe is left above ground so he can put water into it and it goes directly to the roots. This works, the only problem is the pipe he’s been using recently is bright yellow and the pipe ends sticking out of the ground look a bit weird.
The idea of staking a tree is to support it so strong winds don’t shake it about and disturb the growing roots. This is all very well but I’ve seen as many trees damaged by stakes as ones that have been saved by them.
If the stake is too short a tall, skinny tree will break at the tie point in a strong wind. And the ties themselves, even the commercially produced ones, often damage the bark of a growing tree. I like to use strips of old tyre inner-tubes or discarded hose pipe, and to keep a close eye on the ties.
Even minor bark damage can cripple a tree and if the damage is major it will kill it. This sort of damage is commonly caused by mowers and strimmers so if you’re planting in an area where these tools are going to be used think about some sort of barricade of stakes or blocks to keep the machinery away.
It’s better to surround the new tree with a weed-suppressing mulch so there’s nothing to tempt the strimmer in close to the trunk and the tree has less competition for water and nutrients. In general, artificially feeding trees is not as important as reducing the competition for naturally occurring food.
* dick.warner@examiner.ie
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