You know, planting a tree is barely simple especially once you understand how to properly select, plant and stake a tree and that’s exactly what I’m going to show you how to do.

One of the things that you want to pay attention to when you’re selecting a tree is you really want to pay attention to the root ball. This is a healthy root ball. The soil isn’t dried out and the roots aren’t over grown. Now, what I want to try and steal you away from is for selecting plants like this. I mean, this plant was root bound a long time ago and the roots have had time to come up and hit the can and fall back inside that are actually terraced over so the rest is more like bark as opposed to soft and fleshy roots. You have more of a liability to a tree like this.

Now the planting hole I have here is twice as wide as my root ball is, but it’s at the same depth. Now, we’ll just backfill using the native soil since that’s what this tree is going to grow in anyway. Mend your soil only if it’s too sandy or full of clay. What you do want to do is just loosen up the soil around it and now this soil is soft and these new roots will continue to grow around into this tough stuff.

Once you get your plants home and get them in the ground, it’s important that you remove the nursery stick. If it can’t support itself though, you’ll need to use tree sticks. Set these 12 to 14 inches from the trunk, this backyard is shelter from the wind so I’ll use two sticks. But if you’re new trees are out in the open, you can get even more stability by using three or even four stakes.

And when it comes to putting the tree tie on, you want to make sure that you go up high enough to actually support the tree, so I’m going to wrap it around the tree. And instead of just wrapping around like this, you want to create this figure 8 right in there and that will help to actually lock this piece into place. I can just take the other into this tie, slide it right on through here, tighten it up a little and not too tight. You need to have the tree tight enough to support it into a straight position but the tree can have a little bit of natural sway.

What I chose here is a nice soft vinyl. You want to stay from something like this, a piece of wire. This, rubbing back and forth in this tree in the wind is going to do a whole lot of damage and actually just cut through the bark. Now another thing that can actually do damage to the tree is leaving the rest of this tree stake here. Because what happens is as the tree swaying the wind back and fort, these branches just keep on rubbing and bumping into this. I’m going to about two inches above my strap and cut off the stake here.

A new tree needs water directly towards its roots so I’m creating a raised edge or brim to contain the water and the mulch will help seal in moisture. Now keep in mind, every step that I covered was just an effort to give this tree a good start. Periodically, you want to check the tree tie and stake. And once this trunk reaches the size of the support, you can remove the supports and allow the tree to just stand on its own.