Winter Tree Planting

Winter tree planting has become more and more popular lately. After all, this is the only way to plant large-sized trees and shrubs of non-standard large sizes. In this case, you can immediately create a beautiful landscape on your site, without waiting for small trees to grow up.

What is the basis for winter planting, or rather, plant transplantation? With the arrival of autumn, all life processes slow down, the tree goes into a state of rest, plunges into deep sleep. Therefore, in contrast to young seedlings planted in autumn, it practically does not suffer from transplantation. Winter plantings are irreplaceable when it comes to replanting mature trees. The older the tree, the more difficult it is to transplant it to another place: a large crown, a huge leaf surface evaporate a large volume of water per day, which the damaged root system is not able to replace. In winter, all life processes of the plant are slowed down, moreover, there are no leaves, which means that there is almost no evaporation, and the tree does not suffer from drying out. Therefore, for summer planting, you can use hardwood trees no higher than 4-5 m, conifers - 3.5-4 m,in winter it is possible to transplant trees up to 14 meters high.

Trees for winter planting

When planting in winter, Siberian larch, spruce and pine take root best of all. This is followed by rowan, linden, birch, American maple, poplar, elm, Norway maple. But their transplantation is also allowed at temperatures not lower than 15 degrees below zero.

For winter planting, seedlings must be taken from the nursery - only they have a well-formed root system and an earthen lump specially prepared for winter transplantation. For this, in the nursery, the selected specimens are dug in a trench in the summer and filled with fertile soil. Gradually, the cut roots are restored, and by autumn the tree is ready for transplanting. It is dug in again and left to freeze, and in winter it is transported to a new place and planted in a previously prepared hole. Its size depends on the age of the seedling. So, for seedlings up to 1 m high, they dig a hole of 100x60 cm, and for plants more than one and a half meters - 150x85 cm.

Preparing the planting pit and planting seedlings

Before you start planting trees in winter, you need to prepare a planting hole in the fall. When preparing the seat, fold the upper fertile layer separately from the lower one. Then apply dry manure or humus to the bottom of the pit and return the fertile soil layer. If the soil on the site is poor, then when refueling the planting pit, it will have to be mixed with humus or fertile soil. Don't forget fertilizers. After all, a tree will grow for a long time, and it is a difficult task to bring nutrition into the soil to a sufficient depth. Therefore, make a reserve for the future. It is better to use complex fertilizers with a full set of macro and microelements that are slightly soluble in water. These fertilizers saturate the soil with nutrients gradually and are therefore suitable for autumn application. If there are no complex fertilizers at hand,they can be replaced with potassium chloride in combination with ammoniated superphosphate. If the soil is acidic, add deoxidizing materials (lime, chalk, dolomite flour).

When planting, the root collar of the seedling should be buried no more than 2-3 cm, taking into account the shrinkage of the earth in the pit. The pit is filled with the excavated earth, and then the tree trunk circle is mulched with peat.