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Bare Rooted Ornamental Trees and Shrubs

ornamental bareroot 

Ornamental trees and garden plants are essential for enriching the appearance of any landscape or garden. An ornamental tree or shrub is one to be used as part of your landscape for purely aesthetic reasons.

Planting bare rooted trees and shrubs into your garden is a very cost effective way for you to obtain more advanced plants in your garden. Planting bare rooted ornamental trees and shrubs now, is the time to establish them in your garden before spring and in readiness our usually hot summer. 

We have a large selection of sizes and varieties, which, you can now take a stroll through and just browse.  We are eager to help you with any advice or guidance relating to your requirements and general enquiries. Such an opportunity for you to obtain ornamental trees and shrubs, could never be better or so well timed. These will trees and shrubs will give you years of pleasure all year around and for many years.    

We also have a fantastic range of locally grown cold climate plants, seedlings, raised vegetable gardens, summer flowing annuals, hedging plants, perennials, herbs, flowers, climbing plants, indoor plants and many more! Call us or come down and see our nursery stock in Goulburn to find what you’re after.

Planting Bare Rooted Ornamental Trees and Shrubs

If you are unable to plant your bare rooted ornamentals for a while after purchasing them, it's important to protect them until you can tend to the task. The most important consideration is to protect the buds and keeping the roots moist. Open any plastic wrapping around bare roots, and refresh roots in a bucket of water if you will plant them within 12 hours. Otherwise, sprinkle roots with water and leave them wrapped in plastic for a few days, while keeping the roots in darkness. 

Alternatively, if you need additional time before planting, it's best to 'heel' them in a bare spot in the garden or the kid's sand pit is a practical option. Other materials that can be used to cover the roots and keeping them moist are water soaked wood shaving, saw dust, or sphagnum moss, in a large pot. Either convenient way, water your bare rooted ornamentals as often as necessary to keep the roots moist. Then plant as early as possible to avoid damaging new roots and top growth.

Note: take care to not have the roots soaking in water for a prolonged time. This can result in soffocation of healthy root tissue, which may lead to the onset of disease. Also allowing the roots to dry out can be be very damaging to the tree.

To provide your ornamentals with the right environment to promote good health and vigorous growth, you need to provide a location where they'll receive at least six hours of sun in the summer. The site should be permanent, away from competing trees and shrubs to provide an good air flow through the foliage. This will assist in the control or avoidance of many diseases and pest infestation.

1. Planting your bare rooted trees and shrubs as soon as possible after purchase is most desirable. Doing so, it is likely to enable you to plant your tree without fuss. However, depending on the durration of the roots being exposed, it may be beneficial to soak the roots in a bucket of water for about least two hours. Do not soak the roots soaking in water any longer than 12 hours. Prune roots that are broken, injured, or too long.

2. Dig a hole deeper and wider than required to accommodate the roots to allow the addition of compost and/or manure, keeping the backfill close. Add two shovels of composted manure or compost to the hole, then mix it into the bottom soil forming an inverted cone in the bottom of the hole. Set the plant in the hole and spread the roots evenly around it.

 - grafted ornamentals; position the plant so that the graft union, the swelling near the base of the plant where the top part of the plant joins the 'rootstock', is well above the soil surface.

 - own-rooted ornamentls differ from grafted or budded stock. These are grown from cuttings, they develop their own root systems and therefore, don't have a knobby graft union. Simply plant them about 30mm to 50mm deeper than they were previously planted. This location is easily identified by either a soil mark, or a yellowing of the stem.

3. Backfill the planting hole two-thirds full, add water, then allow it to drain. This helps settle the soil. Fill the hole with more soil; water again.

4. Prune the canopy by about one-third, to concentrate the plant's energy in growing roots; remove any dead or broken wood to foster strong growth. When planting container-grown ornamentals, keep pruning to a minimum at planting time. Wait several weeks until growing resumes, then feed with a quality fertiliser.

The Gehl Garden Centre staff are always happy to give further information regarding all of your garden requirements, fertilisers, mulching, watering, pests, diseases and any other associated issues concerning you. We are always happy to help

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