Thursday, November 1, 2012

Planting a bush in 5 Steps

Step 1: Call 811 and have your lines marked

Step 2:  Dig your hole being careful around lines.  your hole should be at least 2x wider than your plant pot

Step 3:  Measure the depth of the hole - this can be accomplished by laying a tool handle across the hole and then using a different tool to ascertain the depth (either another tool handle or a measuring tape)

Step 4:  Measure the depth of your plant root ball.  You want your hole depth to be the same depth - never deeper, but you can go a smidge shallower.  If you look at the embiggened picture above and below - you'll see there's a 2" difference... I left the two inch difference because I tend to be hard on plants when I'm planting them and remove a bunch of the wood chips that bushes/trees are inevitably packed in.

Step 5:  Remove the plant from the pot, make sure to cut any roots that are starting to go around the root ball.  Place the plant in the hole and start to fill in some dirt.  When about halfway filled, fill the hole with water.  Finish filling in the rest of the dirt and make sure to water well.  I usually will also fill the hole with water and let it drain before placing the plant. Trees and bushes will need additional water for at least one year.

2 comments:

Bob said...

Have you ever read any thing about square hole planting of trees and bushes? I've never done it but it makes sense.

katina said...

I was just reading about it the other day - I was going to try it with these just to see how they did, but after I started digging the holes I decided I just wanted to get it done quickly, thus, circles.