Designing Your Garden

Selecting Plants For Your Garden

Planting Tips

Mulching Your Garden

Watering Your Garden

Maintaining Your Garden

Planting Tips

1. Mark a planting area three to five times the diameter of the rootball.

2. Use a rototiller or shovel to loosen and mix the soil to the depth of the tree's rootball.  Add organic materials and other amendments only if necessary.

3. Dig a shallow hole (only as deep as the rootball) in the center of the prepared location.

4. For container plants, check to see if encircling roots are present.  If the roots appear to circle the container, gently separate and spread them into the planting hole.

5. Place the rootball in the hole, making sure that its top is level with or a little higher than the top of the surrounding soil

6. Backfill around the rootball and gently pack the soil to prevent air pockets.

7. Water well after planting.

8. Apply at least three inches of mulch to cover the prepared area.  Do not mulch within six to eight inches of the base of plant .

9. Tips for Trees:

• For watering tubes, dig a second hole next to the tree hole.  Allow the top of the watering tube grate to sit one inch above soil level.  This usually means digging holes for the tubes approximately six inches deeper than the hole for the rootball.

• Install one to two watering tubes using PVC perforated pipe that is twenty inches long and four inches in diameter with a sloted grate on top.

• Delay using watering tubes until your tree has been growing a few months.

• Stake trees only if necessary using two lodgepole tree stakes two to three inches in diameter and eight feet long placed eight to ten inches from the trunk.  Pound at least two feet of each stake into the ground.  Tie the stake to the tree using one recycled thirty inches long tire for each stake.  Place ties at the lowest point on the trunk where the top of the tree will return to normal position after bending sideways.

 

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