Bare Root Plants

Bare root planting is a method—and usually the best method—of planting deciduous plants (those that lose their leaves in winter, such as roses, apples, or sycamores). Commercial growers raise the plants to salable size in their growing fields. Then in early December, they dig up the plants, clean and trim the roots, and ship the plants off to retailers.

Normally, bare root plants are sold from bins of wet shavings or earth. Sometimes you can find bare root plants being sold with their roots covered with fancy wrapping. Some nurserymen put bare root plants into containers as soon as they receive them, but will bare the roots again if you ask them to.

Here are some tips for buying and planting bare root deciduous plants. Following these suggestions is a listing of the many kinds of trees and shrubs (in addition to roses) that you can buy and plant using the same techniques discussed below.

Two valid reasons for buying and setting out a bare root plant in winter or early spring rather than waiting until spring, summer, or fall when you can buy the same plants in containers, are the following: 1) You save money. Typically a bare root plant costs only 30 to 70 percent of what the same container plant will cost later in the year. 2) The manner in which a bare root plant is planted makes it easier to maintain, often makes it grow faster, and makes it healthier and more vigorous than a container plant would be if set out later in the year.When you plant a bare root tree, the soil you use to refill the planting hole does not have to be amended as it would for container plants. But, if your garden soil is so bad that you feel you must add an amendment, be sure to improve the whole area into which the roots of the mature plant will spread (about the same width of soil as the width of the mature top growth). For bare root planting to be successful, the roots should be fresh (not half dead) and plump (not dry and withered), and in many cases the roots and tops should be pruned according to the kind of plant. For these reasons you should buy your bare root plants (packaged, or out of bins of shavings) from a nursery and not from a store that sells nursery plants as a sideline. Only an experienced nurseryman is likely to keep bare root plants in such a way that their roots will be fresh and plump when they are sold. And only an experienced nurseryman will know how to prune the tops and roots of the plant you are buying and will be able to give you accurate and specific advice about how and where to plant it.If you have any doubt about the freshness of the roots, soak them overnight in a bucket of water before planting.

Following is a list of some of the many plants sold bare root:

FRUIT TREES: apple, apricot, peach, plum.

NUT TREES: almond, filbert, walnut.

OTHER FRUITS: blackberry, blueberry, grapes, raspberry.

SHADE TREES: ash, beech, birch, box elder, catalpa, horse chestnut, linden, maple, oak, poplar, sycamore, tulip tree, weeping willow.

FLOWERING PLANTS: bittersweet, cherry, crabapple, dogwood, forsythia, honeysuckle, lilac, plum, quince, spiraea, viburnum, weigela, wisteria.

Soil surrounding bare root plant on left doesn’t need amendments, but container plants require amended soil.