Reminder...Get your bare roots in!

Sgt Pepper 64

Now is the time for all things bareroot especially roses and hedges

Hedges

• Plant deciduous hedges from January to March, and evergreen hedges in March or April.
• Water or soak each plant well at least an hour before planting. If you buy bare-root plants, soak immediately for an hour, then heel into spare ground until planting. Keep the plants in a bucket of water while waiting to be planted.
• Never leave bare roots exposed for more than a minute or so.
• Dig a trench one spade’s depth and 1m (3ft) wide for any hedge. Remove all weeds and loosen the subsoil, but try not to mix subsoil and topsoil.
• Don’t plant too closely together. Allow 30cm (1ft) for hawthorn and box, 60cm (2ft) for hornbeam and 1m (3ft) for yew. Place each plant slightly proud of the soil using the excavated topsoil, and work it carefully around the roots. Firm in well, water thoroughly, then mulch the full width of the trench generously with compost.
• Water thoroughly every week for the first spring and summer.
• Stake young plants with canes for the first two years.
• Keep the line of the hedge weed-free.

Norfolk Enchants_

Sgt Pepper 64 wrote: »

Now is the time for all things bareroot especially roses and hedges

Hedges

• Plant deciduous hedges from January to March, and evergreen hedges in March or April.
• Water or soak each plant well at least an hour before planting. If you buy bare-root plants, soak immediately for an hour, then heel into spare ground until planting. Keep the plants in a bucket of water while waiting to be planted.
• Never leave bare roots exposed for more than a minute or so.
• Dig a trench one spade’s depth and 1m (3ft) wide for any hedge. Remove all weeds and loosen the subsoil, but try not to mix subsoil and topsoil.
• Don’t plant too closely together. Allow 30cm (1ft) for hawthorn and box, 60cm (2ft) for hornbeam and 1m (3ft) for yew. Place each plant slightly proud of the soil using the excavated topsoil, and work it carefully around the roots. Firm in well, water thoroughly, then mulch the full width of the trench generously with compost.
• Water thoroughly every week for the first spring and summer.
• Stake young plants with canes for the first two years.
• Keep the line of the hedge weed-free.

Where are you getting this information from?. Without being too cruel the vast majority of it is superfluous and some of it is just outright incorrect.

Niall_daaS

Norfolk Enchants_ wrote: »

Where are you getting this information from?. Without being too cruel the vast majority of it is superfluous and some of it is just outright incorrect.

Agree!

Sonnenblumen

Norfolk Enchants_ wrote: »

Where are you getting this information from?. Without being too cruel the vast majority of it is superfluous and some of it is just outright incorrect.

Can you be more specific?

lazybones32

OP, you might mean well but if I were to follow some of that advice, I'd lose money in planting a hedge...the recommendations supplied are not practical or necessary for Irish (or British Isles) conditions.

?Cee?view

Amateur here, but other than:

"Stake young plants with canes for the first two years."

What's overkill in the advice given?

magicbastarder

i would suspect the 'never leave bareroots exposed for more than a minute or so' is overkill. you don't want the plant completely drying out, but you've a much longer grace period than that.

lazybones32

?Cee?view wrote: »

Amateur here, but other than:

"Stake young plants with canes for the first two years."

What's overkill in the advice given?

1m wide trench is too much. Just a little beyond the diameter of the root is enough.
The planting time - in Ireland - is between Nov. and Mar. and shouldn't be done when the ground is frozen.
Water every week? Not that it's necessary in Irish climate and soaking for 1 hr is too much. Either soak 'em for 5 mins or water-in if they're being planted in dry ground...which may be rare in Ireland over Winter/Spring.
Spreading compost on top of dug soil can actually help weedlings to germinate quicker, so it's a waste of money and increasing labour by having to pick the weeds out.

Mollycoddling plants isn't necessary...

Sonnenblumen

lazybones32 wrote: »

OP, you might mean well but if I were to follow some of that advice, I'd lose money in planting a hedge...the recommendations supplied are not practical or necessary for Irish (or British Isles) conditions.

There are many reasons why a newly planted hedge in Ireland might fail. Often it is too do with poor ground preparation (trench too shallow or too narrow, grass margin too close, weeds etc. There is a high failure rate with hedge plantings (especially bare roots/whips), plants not firmly planted in ground (wind rock), dehydration (before/after planting) etc etc. I would agree that the planting time is much longer than the OP has suggested (my rule of thumb is same day or within max 24 hours).

Whatever works best, but time will eventually tell.

Niall_daaS

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

There is a high failure rate with hedge plantings (especially bare roots/whips)

I'm always surprise that larger dedicious plants as well as conifers are planted with bare roots. Taxus, Thuja etc in sizes larger 3- 4 ft with bare roots? Sounds strange to me. Is this really happening? And does it really work?

Sonnenblumen

Niall_daaS wrote: »

I'm always surprise that larger dedicious plants as well as conifers are planted with bare roots. Taxus, Thuja etc in sizes larger 3- 4 ft with bare roots? Sounds strange to me. Is this really happening? And does it really work?

Larger evergreen stock would tend to be rootballed, and yes the failure rate with this type of planting is also unnecessarily high. Ccauses mainly due to shock/dehydration especially amongst 1.5m - 2.0m Taxus & Thujas but less so with Laurus Nobilis, Prunus Lusitanicas which are also very popular RB mature plant choices.

gk5000

Niall_daaS wrote: »

I'm always surprise that larger dedicious plants as well as conifers are planted with bare roots. Taxus, Thuja etc in sizes larger 3- 4 ft with bare roots? Sounds strange to me. Is this really happening? And does it really work?

It's even better, you can order them and they are delivered by An Post, or other couriers. Basically the plant is in hibernation so does not need water or nutrients, but keep cool as possible.
I have planted bare root, apples, pears etc, from
Futureforests.ie and fruitandnut.ie

Niall_daaS

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Larger evergreen stock would tend to be rootballed, and yes the failure rate with this type of planting is also unnecessarily high. Ccauses mainly due to shock/dehydration especially amongst 1.5m - 2.0m Taxus & Thujas but less so with Laurus Nobilis, Prunus Lusitanicas which are also very popular RB mature plant choices.

With us all conifers and evergreens would come with rootballs. I think it's nonsens to plant > 60- 80 cm with bare roots at any time of the season.

Niall_daaS

gk5000 wrote: »

Basically the plant is in hibernation so does not need water or nutrients, but keep cool as possible.

That's technically wrong. Evergreens and conifers transpire even in winter when there's enough light. That would mean they need nutrition from the ground to counterbalance their input/output. I agree they can survive in a dark post package when kept cold and wet for the duration of a 2-day-delivery, but it's just not as simple as the salesmen might tell You mentioned to have bought fruit trees - that might work better while leafless.

Sgt Pepper 64

Norfolk Enchants_ wrote: »

Where are you getting this information from?. Without being too cruel the vast majority of it is superfluous and some of it is just outright incorrect.

err Monty Don!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/gardening/article-1346731/Monty-Don-Hedges-nows-time-plant-them.html

Niall_daaS

Sgt Pepper 64 wrote: »

err Monty Don!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/gardening/article-1346731/Monty-Don-Hedges-nows-time-plant-them.html

I'm afraid it's not getting right from that. Is this guy really telling a larger public via tv and books about gardening?

Sonnenblumen

Niall_daaS wrote: »

I'm afraid it's not getting right from that. Is this guy really telling a larger public via tv and books about gardening?

Na und?
Not happy with expressing your own opinion are we now going to read you criticise Monty Don's gardening advice?

Surely there's something to do in Dortmund?

Niall_daaS

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

Na und?
Not happy with expressing your own opinion are we now going to read you criticise Monty Don's gardening advice?

Surely there's something to do in Dortmund?

Sorry, his advice is great.

lazybones32

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

There are many reasons why a newly planted hedge in Ireland might fail. Often it is too do with poor ground preparation (trench too shallow or too narrow, grass margin too close, weeds etc. There is a high failure rate with hedge plantings (especially bare roots/whips), plants not firmly planted in ground (wind rock), dehydration (before/after planting) etc etc. I would agree that the planting time is much longer than the OP has suggested (my rule of thumb is same day or within max 24 hours).

Whatever works best, but time will eventually tell.

I wasn't advising cutting corners by digging too shallow or narrow a trench. I was simply stating that the advice is excessive and not a cost-effective method.
People could do in 3 steps what the advice proposes in 8.

Norfolk Enchants_

Sgt Pepper 64 wrote: »

err Monty Don!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/gardening/article-1346731/Monty-Don-Hedges-nows-time-plant-them.html

Jaysus, cant say I'm too surprised though, I've always found him to be overly fastidious. Although in his defence one can only imagine that this was sub edited and he just put his name to it without been proof read, that's the only plausible explanation.

monkeynuz

magicbastarder wrote: »

i would suspect the 'never leave bareroots exposed for more than a minute or so' is overkill. you don't want the plant completely drying out, but you've a much longer grace period than that.

I was always told 90 seconds is the limit for bare roots to be exposed to the air without moisture.