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Garden Gate:  christmas trees with the root balls  |
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momof2jrt
True Blue Farmgirl
194 Posts
Denise
grafton
wv
USA
194 Posts |
 Posted - Dec 29 2006 : 2:02:31 PM
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I live in West Virginia and we bought a live Christmas tree with the roots...after the decorations are off 0f it...could someone tell me what to do with it next...of course I want to plant it but when and how...
thanks
denise |
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Marybeth
True Blue Farmgirl
6418 Posts
Mary Beth
Stanwood
Wa 98292
USA
6418 Posts |
Posted - Dec 29 2006 : 5:34:12 PM
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If you haven't had any freezing weather or even if you had and it isn't now you could plant now. If it is wrapped in burlap you could just score the burlap or unwrap it and plant it all. Burlap will eventually rot away. The best way is to dig a hole generally twice the size of the root ball put in some nice compost and mix well unwrap the root ball and i would discard the burlap, and position the roots in the hole. Spread them out as much as you can because roots need to stretch out. Cover with soil but only up to where the tree was planted before. If you plant too deep you will kill it. There ya go. Does that help? MB
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
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Libbie
Farmgirl Connection Cultivator
3579 Posts
Anne E.
Elsinore
Utah
USA
3579 Posts |
Posted - Dec 29 2006 : 9:24:05 PM
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Denise, we have done this for a few years, too - I love the idea! MaryBeth is right about the planting stuff - just be sure to dig one LARGE hole for the tree, like she recommended. You want that little guy to rest safely and securely in his new home. How fun!!!
XOXO, Libbie
"Nothing is worth more than this day." - Goethe |
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Horseyrider
True Blue Farmgirl
1045 Posts
Mary Ann
Illinois
1045 Posts |
Posted - Dec 30 2006 : 04:26:46 AM
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Oh my, you ladies bring back a memory!
Many years ago, hubby and I decided we wanted to have a live tree for Christmas. We decided we'd do that every year, and then in the decades to come we'd have plenty of green in the yard year round.
We went to the nursery and selected a five foot Colorado blue spruce. It was perfectly shaped, a lovely specimen. We loaded it in the truck (with a lot of grunting and shoving) and brought it home.
We dug our hole and filled it with straw to keep it from freezing, and had the soil from the hole on a piece of plywood so it could easily go back in the hole when we were ready. We'd read that you don't want the tree indoors more than three or four days or it would break dormancy, so we left it outside until three days before Christmas.
Four days before Christmas it rained like crazy.
That root ball became so soaked with water, well, there was just no way we could get it up the steps of the porch and into the house! We struggled and wrangled, and it just wouldn't go.
So that year we had no Christmas tree in the house; it stayed outside. We had to roll it onto a tarp and have a horse pull it to the hole, because we couldn't move it; it was so heavy! And it was hard work for the horse, too.
It's still there. It grew beautifully, and is now probably thirty feet tall. We didn't get any more living Christmas trees with root balls. We got an artificial one that I could manage alone, without any horsepower.  |
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momto6
True Blue Farmgirl
134 Posts
Valerie
Goltry
OK
USA
134 Posts |
Posted - Dec 30 2006 : 06:25:08 AM
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Mary Ann,
Your story made me laugh. I remember when I was little, traipsing around through whatever woods my Grandma and Mom had decided housed our treasured Christmas tree that year...Possibly for hours on end at times!!! When we got it back, and got ready to put it in the house, it NEVER failed that we had to cut some off. Trees that look the perfect size out in the country seldom look that small when you get them into a real living room (lol).
What I wonder is why it was always the women who went and got the trees, sawed them down, dragged them and loaded them in the vehicle...never a man in sight!!!!!
Val |
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Garden Gate: christmas trees with the root balls |
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christmas trees with the root balls
