Chicago Home and Lifestyles – Tips for planting fall trees and shrubs

Now is the best time to plant new trees and shrubs, but you may feel a little lost on how to go about it. Here are some practical tips based on my experience:

Buying

Be careful choosing trees and shrubs for your landscape. Most garden centers and big box stores will reduce the prices on their inventory by as much as 50%. They want to sell as much as possible now so as not to carry it throughout the winter. Granted, some specimens will look a bit tired—but if they look generally healthy, they should do fine when you get them into the ground!

Make sure you research different types to find what fits your space. You don’t want to plant an oak tree in a small backyard. Some shrubs too will have growth that may be wider than you want for say, a privacy hedge. Just be informed, a good deal on a tree may be hard to pass up but it won’t be worth it in five years, and it’s taken over your space. 

Planting

Directions for planting will come with the tree or shrub, or are easily found online. Make sure your hole is deep enough and wide enough. Loosen the soil at the bottom and sides for easier root spread. If directions indicate, remove any cover on the root ball, including cloth and any wires. Score around the ball to loosen the roots a bit. Fill in the hole, firming and watering as you add more. This will eliminate air pockets. Use regular topsoil, not soil with fertilizer added. It’s never good to fertilize young trees and shrubs! 

The hole should be at least twice as wide as the root ball but only as deep. You want the flare of the trunk, which is where the trunk widens at the bottom above the roots, to be above ground. Add 2-3 inches of mulch leaving a six-inch ring around the trunk. This will prevent fungus and pest damage. Prune sparingly until the tree or shrub is at least a year old.

Maintenance

The new planting will need to be thoroughly watered weekly until the ground freezes. The best way, especially with new plantings, is just to let the open hose trickle a foot away from the trunk. Let it go at least an hour or so. You usually only need to do this for trees and shrubs in their first year, as rain is sufficient after that. 

Unfortunately, around much of the country and certainly around Chicagoland we are in a drought situation this fall. A lot of rain is needed for established trees and shrubs to get through the winter healthy. Since we have yet to get that rain, we deep root water all our trees and shrubs weekly and will continue to do so until the ground freezes. The best way to do this is a root waterer. That’s a long pole with holes on the bottom that connects to the garden hose and directs water deep into the roots. Do this at the drip line. No root waterer? Do the hose trickle, also at the root line.

Kathleen Weaver-Zech and Dean’s Team Chicago