Trees look great in even the smallest of gardens. Although you may consider them expensive trees often live longer than you and your child, that is, of course, if you look after them correctly. There are a few very important things to remember when transplanting, or planting, trees in your garden and it is crucial that you do, otherwise you may end up losing them. You will find some of the most important points below.



One thing that can make a massive difference when planting or transplanting trees is how you protect the roots. As well as the larger roots being important for holding the tree in place the finer, fibrous, roots are those that extract all of the water and nutrients, that trees need, from the surrounding soil. Obviously you will need to minimize, or avoid completely, any damage to the roots.

One thing that is, surprisingly, often overlooked by gardeners is the size which a chosen tree can frow to when it reaches maturity. There are a great many different species of trees and most have different heights and spreads when fully mature. Even if a tree looks perfect in the nursery catalog you should always find out how big it can grow and ensure that it will always be a reasonable size for your garden.

Science is great, especially for the gardener, and today it is possible to buy any number of products to help us when planting and transplanting trees. Possibly the two most important, an incredible, are those products designed to reduce leaf drop and/or wilt. The other is the amazing formulae that are usually available in gel or powder form that are designed to help the trees roots grow quickly.

When buying trees it is very important that you inspect the roots to ensure that they are free from disease and are healthy. Always try to get one with a large root ball. By using the products mentioned above you can vastly improve the chances of your tree surviving by minimizing the amount of fluid loss (wilt-proof spray) and ensuring that the roots become established quickly (rooting hormone) and thus able to extract vital moisture and nutrients as early as possible.

However, before you start planting/transplanting your tree you should ensure that you have plenty of fresh water to hand. Tap water is fine but you should leave it to stand for a minimum of a few hours to ensure that any chlorine has evaporated. If you can start to collect rainwater well in advance of planting/transplanting trees as natural rainwater is always the best. Check and double check you have everything to hand so that you can get your tree into the ground as quickly as possible.

Only now can you really get started. Planting and transplanting trees is pretty easy. Simply dig a hole in the ground where you want it to go and make sure that there is a gap of around 1 foot around the root ball. Loosen the soil at the bottom as much as you can and mix in some compost, peat or quality loam. If you really must add manure only use a very small amount and mix it in well, better still mix in a small amount of bone meal (rotting material can burn the roots).

Pour a large amount of water into the hole and allow it to drain away so that there are no puddles. Put the tree into the hole and fill to about two thirds of the way with soil which should be firmed slightly and flooded. When it has drained fill the rest of the hole making sure that there are no air pockets and that's you done. All your hard work will be rewarded when, in a couple of weeks, your trees begin to grow vigorously.