Posted on by tonytomeo

Bare Root Stock

Bare Root Stock may not be much to look at.

Now that nurseries and garden centers are no longer selling Christmas trees, they have plenty of room for bare root stock. All sorts of deciduous fruit trees, a few deciduous shade trees, shrubs and vines, and even a few perennials can now be purchased while dormant and without the cumbersome media (soil) that the roots need at all other times of the year. Not only is bare root stock easier to handle and transport in small cars, but it is also much less expensive than canned stock (that has roots contained in media, which is contained in nursery cans). Bare root stock typically costs about a third of what canned stock costs.

Bare root stock also has the advantage of adapting to new garden easier, since it does not need to leave the comfort zone of the media that it would have grown into (within a can) in order to venture out into unfamiliar soil. Instead, it starts to disperse roots into the new home soil immediately as it emerges from dormancy in late winter. Without cans, bare root stock can not get root bound. Instead of developing branch structure that is appealing to nursery marketing, bare root stock can get an early start on developing branch structure that is most practical and efficient for the gardens that it gets installed into.

It seems that all of the ´stone’ fruit can be found as bare root stock. These include apricot, cherry, plum, prune, peach, nectarine, almond (which is the seed, or ´stone’, of a peach like fruit) and the odd hybrids of these. The pomme fruits, apple, pear and quince, are perhaps the second most popular of bare root stock, although quince is still rather rare. Ornamental trees, shrubs and vines include flowering crabapple, flowering cherry, flowering quince, alder, poplar, willow, lilac, forsythia, wisteria and clematis. Perennials include rhubarb and artichoke.

Bare root stock can be purchased as soon as it becomes available, but does not do much until it starts to grow in spring. It should get planted quickly and soaked in, but will get more water than it needs from rain afterward. It should not need water again until after it blooms or gets new leaves in late winter or early spring. Despite guarantees of fruit in the first year, none should be expected. The few fruit trees that might set fruit will probably produce only useless underdeveloped fruit because new plants are busy producing new roots and growing. Actually though, this apples to canned stock as well, except only for citrus, olives and other evergreen fruit trees.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Bare Root Stock

Dormancy makes this process possible.

As soon as any unsold Christmas trees move out of nurseries, bare root plants move in. Like Christmas trees, bare root plants are available within a limited season, while they are dormant through winter. They will all be gone by the time they start blooming and producing new foliage at the end of winter.

Bare root plants of course have ‘bare roots’, without typical media (potting soil) contained within cans or pots. Some get their roots wrapped in lightweight coarse sawdust to keep them moist without too much bulk. Others get their roots heeled into moist sand in nurseries, so that they can simply be dug when purchased.

Because bare root plants need much less space than canned (potted) plants, many more different kinds of deciduous fruit trees, roses, grapes, berries and even a few ornamentals are available. Bare root plants also cost about half as much as typical canned plants.

Since no nursery can stock all of what is available, more varieties are available from mail order catalogues and online. Most of what is available in local nurseries is selected for local climates. Plants purchased from catalogues or online need to be selected accordingly.

A main advantage of bare root plants is that they get established in the garden more efficiently than typical canned (potted) plants do. They get dug, transported and replanted into the garden all while dormant. By the time they wake up in spring, they are already in their new home, where they immediately adapt and start to disperse their roots into relatively uniform soil. Canned plants have confined roots that must disperse into unfamiliar garden soil

Bare root plants should get into the garden as soon as possible. If they do not get planted immediately, plants that were pulled from sand in nurseries should get heeled into damp soil or mulch, and watered to settle the fill. Alternatively, they can wait with their roots in buckets of water for a day to two. Bare root plants that are wrapped in bags of sawdust should be safe for more than a week in the shade outside.

Planting holes should be just large enough to accommodate the roots. If too deep, the loosened soil below is likely to settle and sink. Soil can be mounded into a small cone (known as a ‘volcano’) in the middle of each hole to spread roots over. Graft unions (seen as kinks low on trunks of fruit trees or where rose plants branch) of grafted plants should stand above the surface of the soil. Backfill soil should only be amended lightly, if at all.

Even though dormant plants get more moisture than they need from rain through winter, freshly planted bare root plants should get soaked twice immediately after planting to settle the soil around their roots. Lastly, damaged or superfluous stems can be pruned off. Most bare root fruit trees have much more stems than they should for padding in transportation and to allow more options for pruning.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Bare Root Season Is Winter

Dormant roots resume growth next spring.

Gardening is dynamic. It must adapt as each season becomes the next. Autumn became winter. Then, suddenly, the Christmas Season became bare root season. Cut Christmas trees that did not sell became green waste. Formerly expensive live Christmas trees that did not sell became bargains. They must relinquish their spaces for fresh bare root stock.

The chronology could not be better. Christmas trees are seasonable while not much else is. Their season abruptly ends precisely as bare root season begins. Bare root season is contingent on the winter dormancy of all associated bare root stock. While dormant, such stock is unaware of what is happening. Otherwise, it would not survive such techniques.

Bare root stock grows in the ground on farms. The roots become bare by separation from their soil during winter dormancy. They should be comfortable within the soil of their new gardens before dormancy ends. They disperse new roots into their new gardens as they resume growth after dormancy. Therefore, transition from farm to garden should be quick.

Some bare root stock arrives by parcel delivery with damply wrapped and bagged roots. More is available from nurseries, with its roots relaxing within damp sand until purchase. Some is available within individual bags of damp sawdust. Most bare root stock benefits from generally minor trimming or grooming. All benefits from prompt and proper planting.

Bare root season is the best time to procure and install several types of plants. Bare root stock is significantly less expensive than canned stock. It is also much less cumbersome to bring home from nurseries. Because bare roots were never confined within cans, they disperse more efficiently. Formerly canned root systems must recover from confinement.

Deciduous fruit trees and roses are the most popular bare root plants. More cultivars are available during bare root season than as canned nursery stock later. Several deciduous but fruitless trees, vines and shrubs are also available. So are a few types of berries and perennials, like rhubarb, asparagus and artichoke. Bare root season finishes with winter.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Bare Root Stock

Bare root stock is none too pretty in the beginning.

Now that Christmas trees have been moved out of the nurseries, it is time for bare root plants to move in! As the term implies, bare root plants have ‘bare roots’, lacking typical media (such as potting soil) which is typically contained in cans or pots. All sorts of deciduous fruit trees, roses, grapes and berries can be purchased bare root, either bagged with moist wood shavings, or out of the ‘sand boxes’ that they are heeled into in the nurseries. Even more are available from mail order catalogues. (Just check climate zone ratings for mail order stock.)

I purchased all of my deciduous fruit trees bare root mainly to save money. Bare root stock typically costs about half of what canned stock (grown in a nursery can or pot) does. Also, because bare root stock does not take up as much space as canned stock does, more varieties can be brought in and made available during bare root season.

Bare root stock gets established into the garden more efficiently than canned stock does. It gets dug, transported and planted while dormant; and can disperse roots into relatively uniform soil immediately after dormancy. However, stock that gets canned wakes up in spring in uncomfortably warm and confining nursery cans. After adapting to nursery conditions, it must then adapt to new garden environments, and disperse roots into soil that is very different from what it already rooted into.

Bare root stock should be planted as soon as possible after it leaves the nursery so that roots do not get too dry. If they can not get planted immediately, plants that were pulled from sand boxes in nurseries should get their roots heeled into (covered with) damp soil. Bagged stock in original packaging is safe for a few days in the shade.

Roots should be soaked a few hours before planting. I prefer to instead keep roots well watered for a day after planting. Broken or damaged roots should be pruned away before planting. Damaged and superfluous stems should be pruned away after planting.

Planting holes for bare root stock can be wide enough to loosen surrounding soil, but should be no deeper than necessary. Plants are likely to settle too deeply if the soil below is too loose. All roots should be buried while graft unions (the odd ‘kinks’ low on the trunks of grafted trees) remain exposed. Soil can be mounded firmly into a ‘volcano’ in the middle of each hole to spread roots over. Backfill soil can be amended lightly; not so much that it is too different from surrounding soil.

A basin should be formed around each new bare root plant so that roots can be soaked and settled in by filling the basins with water twice. Bare root plants are initially dormant and lack foliage, so do not need water again until they develop foliage, and the soil gets dry in spring. Besides, rain and cool weather will keep the soil wet through winter.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 4 Comments

Bare Root Begins As Christmas Ends

Bare root stock is exactly what it sounds like.

Now that nurseries and garden centers are no longer selling Christmas trees, they have plenty of room for bare root stock. All sorts of deciduous fruit trees, a few deciduous shade trees, shrubs and vines, and even a few perennials can now be purchased while dormant and without the cumbersome media (soil) that the roots need at all other times of the year. Not only is bare root stock easier to handle and transport in small cars, but it is also much less expensive than canned stock (that has roots contained in media, which is contained in nursery cans). Bare root stock typically costs about a third of what canned stock costs.

Bare root stock also has the advantage of adapting to new garden easier, since it does not need to leave the comfort zone of the media that it would have grown into (within a can) in order to venture out into unfamiliar soil. Instead, it starts to disperse roots into the new home soil immediately as it emerges from dormancy in late winter. Without cans, bare root stock can not get root bound. Instead of developing branch structure that is appealing to nursery marketing, bare root stock can get an early start on developing branch structure that is most practical and efficient for the gardens that it gets installed into.

It seems that all of the ´stone’ fruit can be found as bare root stock. These include apricot, cherry, plum, prune, peach, nectarine, almond (which is the seed, or ´stone’, of a peach like fruit) and the odd hybrids of these. The pomme fruits, apple, pear and quince, are perhaps the second most popular of bare root stock, although quince is still rather rare. Ornamental trees, shrubs and vines include flowering crabapple, flowering cherry, flowering quince, alder, poplar, willow, lilac, forsythia, wisteria and clematis. Perennials include rhubarb and artichoke.

Bare root stock can be purchased as soon as it becomes available, but does not do much until it starts to grow in spring. It should get planted quickly and soaked in, but will get more water than it needs from rain afterward. It should not need water again until after it blooms or gets new leaves in late winter or early spring. Despite guarantees of fruit in the first year, none should be expected. The few fruit trees that might set fruit will probably produce only useless underdeveloped fruit because new plants are busy producing new roots and growing. Actually though, this apples to canned stock as well, except only for citrus, olives and other evergreen fruit trees.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Winter Is Bare Root Season

Plant a bare root peach tree now for peaches like this later.

Now that nurseries and garden centers are no longer selling Christmas trees, they have plenty of room for bare root stock. All sorts of deciduous fruit trees, a few deciduous shade trees, shrubs and vines, and even a few perennials can now be purchased while dormant and without the cumbersome media (soil) that the roots need at all other times of the year. Not only is bare root stock easier to handle and transport in small cars, but it is also much less expensive than canned stock (that has roots contained in media, which is contained in nursery cans). Bare root stock typically costs about a third of what canned stock costs.

Bare root stock also has the advantage of adapting to new garden easier, since it does not need to leave the comfort zone of the media that it would have grown into (within a can) in order to venture out into unfamiliar soil. Instead, it starts to disperse roots into the new home soil immediately as it emerges from dormancy in late winter. Without cans, bare root stock can not get root bound. Instead of developing branch structure that is appealing to nursery marketing, bare root stock can get an early start on developing branch structure that is most practical and efficient for the gardens that it gets installed into.

It seems that all of the ´stone’ fruit can be found as bare root stock. These include apricot, cherry, plum, prune, peach, nectarine, almond (which is the seed, or ´stone’, of a peach like fruit) and the odd hybrids of these. The pomme fruits, apple, pear and quince, are perhaps the second most popular of bare root stock, although quince is still rather rare. Ornamental trees, shrubs and vines include flowering crabapple, flowering cherry, flowering quince, alder, poplar, willow, lilac, forsythia, wisteria and clematis. Perennials include rhubarb and artichoke.

Bare root stock can be purchased as soon as it becomes available, but does not do much until it starts to grow in spring. It should get planted quickly and soaked in, but will get more water than it needs from rain afterward. It should not need water again until after it blooms or gets new leaves in late winter or early spring. Despite guarantees of fruit in the first year, none should be expected. The few fruit trees that might set fruit will probably produce only useless underdeveloped fruit because new plants are busy producing new roots and growing. Actually though, this apples to canned stock as well, except only for citrus, olives and other evergreen fruit trees.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 6 Comments

Get Bare In Winter

Besides the popular deciduous fruit trees and roses, several deciduous ornamentals, like these clematis vines, are also available bare root.

It may not seem like the middle of winter is a good time for much gardening, but now that any unsold Christmas trees have been removed from nurseries, bare roots plants are moving in. They should be available through the rest of winter, until warming spring weather prompts bloom and emergence of new foliage.

As the name implies, ‘bare root’ plants have bare roots. They are not contained within potting media (soil) in cans or pots. Some are wrapped in coarse sawdust to keep roots moist and contained without much weight. Others are simply heeled into damp sand at nurseries where they can be dug and wrapped when purchased.

Without cumbersome cans, bare root plants occupy less space in nurseries, so many more varieties of fruit trees, grapes, roses, berries and various ornamentals can be available bare root than could be available as standard canned stock during the rest of the year. Bare root plants have the added advantage of costing about half of what canned stock costs.

The main advantage of bare root plants though, is that they waste no time getting established in the garden. The process of getting dug, transported and replanted is done while plants are dormant. When they wake in their new homes in the spring, they immediately start to disperse new roots into the surrounding soil.

If bare root plants can not go directly into the garden once they arrive home, they should be heeled into damp soil or mulch and watered. If planting will be delayed only for a day or two, they can instead be put in a bucket of water to submerge the roots. Plants that are packaged in bags of damp sawdust can wait for more than a week in the shade.

Planting holes need not be any larger than the roots of the bare root plants. If soil is disturbed too deeply, it will only settle and possibly cause new plants to sink. Graft unions (which are evident as kinks low on trunks of trees, or where rose plants branch) should stay above the surface of the soil. Backfill soil should be amended only minimally, or not at all. Too much amendment inhibits root dispersion. (Roots may not want to leave amended soil.) There will be plenty of rain through winter. However, new plants should be soaked twice after planting to settle soil around the roots.

Finally, damaged or unnecessary stems can be pruned off. Bare root fruit trees come with more stems than they need, for padding in transportation, and to allow more options for pruning.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Winter Is For Getting Bare

Bare root plants do not look like much . . . yet.

Even before the last of the Christmas trees vacate nurseries, bare root nursery stock begins to move in, and will be available through winter. As the name implies, ‘bare root’ stock has bare roots, without media (‘potting soil’) or cans (pots) to contain the roots. Many are temporarily heeled into damp sand from which they get dug and wrapped in newspaper when purchased. Others are packaged in damp wood shavings or coarse sawdust contained in narrow plastic bags.

Bare root plants do not mind the lack of media because they get dug, shipped, sold and finally planted into their permanent locations all while naturally dormant through winter. They were in the ground when they went dormant, and will be back in the ground in their new homes by the time they wake up in spring. Because they have not already developed a densely meshed root system within a limited volume of media, they happily disperse new roots directly into the soil where they get planted.

Because they lack relatively bulky cans, bare root plants need less space in nurseries. Many more varieties of deciduous fruit trees, grapevines, roses and berries can therefore be made available. They also cost about half as much as common canned nursery stock.

If bare root plants will not be planted immediately, their roots should be heeled into damp dense mulch (not coarse chips) or soil, and watered. They can be soaked in buckets of water if planting will be delayed only for a day or two. Packaged plants need not be heeled in, and can wait in the shade for more than a week.

Planting holes do not need to be any wider or deeper than the roots. If the soil is loosened too deeply, in will likely settle and cause the new plants to sink. Graft unions must stay above the surface of the soil. (Graft unions are evident where rose plants branch, or as kinks low on tree trunks.) If backfill soil is amended at all, it should be amended only minimally. Otherwise, roots may not want to disperse very far. New plants should be soaked twice in order to settle soil around the roots, but if it rains soon enough, they may not need to be watered again until they start to grow in spring.

Once planted, most bare root plants need some sort of pruning. Fruit trees typically have more stems than they need to maximize the options for their first structure pruning.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Bare Root Season Has Begun

00108thumbBefore all the Christmas trees were sold and relinquished their space, the smaller types of bare root stock started arriving in local nurseries. Blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries, currants, grapes, strawberries, rhubarb and asparagus, may have been available for a while. More substantial bare root stock, such as roses, fruit trees and ornamentals, may already be arriving.

Bare root stock is known as such simply because its roots are bare. It gets dug as dormancy begins in autumn, and separated from the soil it grew in. It remains dormant as it gets transported to nurseries, and then to home gardens where it ultimately gets planted. It is completely unaware of the otherwise unsurvivable processes until it wakes up to resume growth in a new home in spring.

The roots of some of the smaller bare root plants and roses, as well as some fruit trees, are bagged in damp sawdust. Most bare root fruit trees, as well as some of the smaller plants, are merely heeled-in to damp sand, and upon purchase, pulled from the sand and bagged without packing material. Roots can soak in water for a few days prior to planting, but will not survive dry exposure.

There are several advantages to bare root stock. It is significantly less expensive than canned (potted) stock. It is also easier to get from a nursery and into the home garden. Branch structure can develop directly in a garden, rather than adapt from how it developed earlier in a nursery. New roots disperse directly into the soil, so need not recover from former confinement within a can (pot).

The more popular bare root fruit trees that are now becoming available are stone fruits, pomme fruits, persimmons, figs, mulberries and walnuts. Stone fruits are those of the genus Prunus, which contain single large seeds known as stones. These include apricots, cherries, plums, prunes, peaches, nectarines, almonds and their weird hybrids. Apples, pears, and quinces are pomme fruits.

(Almonds are nuts that are actually stones of leathery fruits that dry and separate from the stones as hulls.)

Posted on by tonytomeo · 8 Comments

Winter Is Bare Root Season

80124thumbWhile dormant for winter, some types of plants get dug from the soil and sent to nurseries as ‘bare root’ stock. Some get packaged with their otherwise bare roots contained in bags of damp sawdust. Most just get heeled into damp sand in the retail nurseries where they get sold. These simply get pulled from the sand when sold.

At their new home gardens, bare root plants simply get planted where they will sleep through the rest of winter. In spring, they wake up and start to grow as if nothing ever happened. How sneaky! They do not need big holes for their bare roots. Their graft unions (the ‘kinks’ at the bases of the trunks of grafted plants) must stand above grade. Roots only need to be spread out laterally.

Soil amendment should be minimal. Too much soil amendment promotes root growth around the trunk, which can inhibit root dispersion elsewhere. Too much excavation and amendment below the roots may eventually settle, so that graft unions sag below grade, and get buried. A light dose of fertilizer a bit later promotes early root growth, even while the branches are still bare.

Bare root plants are much more portable than canned (potted) plants. Several can be wrapped and sent home in a small car, or even through the mail; which is why so many bare root plants can be purchased online. (Climate zones should be considered when purchasing online.) Because they occupy less space than canned plants, many more varieties are available in nurseries.

Because they are so easy to handle and process, bare root plants cost about a third of what canned plants cost. Mail order plants from growers often cost even less than those that must be sent to retail nurseries first. Bare root plants are at least as reliable as canned stock, disperse roots more efficiently, and are less likely to be infected with disease when they arrive.

The most popular bare root plants are roses, cane berries, grapevines and fruit trees, like apricot, peach, nectarine, cherry, plum, prune, almond, apple, pear and persimmon. Flowering crabapple, flowering cherry, poplar, lilac, forsythia, wisteria, rhubarb, strawberry and asparagus are also available.