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| Photo Credit: Illustration by Eva Monheim |
| Bare-root trees are shipped just like the name implies – without soil. |
Spring’s just around the corner. For a lot of people that means one thing: planting season! If you’re considering adding a beautiful tree to your garden this year, now’s the time to figure out what kind you’d like, and how and when to purchase it.
While you can find all types of trees, you’re only able to buy them in one of three ways: balled and burlapped (commonly called B&B – they’re grown in the ground, harvested, wrapped in burlap and ready for sale), containerized (grown, sold and shipped in the same container) and bareroot (once harvested, the soil is carefully removed from the roots and readied for sale). Spring is the only time for planting bare-root trees because they must be sold and planted before they come out of dormancy (and within a week of bringing them home). My students often ask if there are any benefits of using bare-root trees, and I always tell them, “Well, there are certainly more benefits than there are disadvantages.” In fact, I believe bare-root trees are the wave of the future – especially when considering rising fuel costs. It costs growers more to ship trees with the soil, and those costs eventually get passed on to the consumer. But that’s certainly not the only benefit of bare-root trees! Here are a few more reasons to consider buying bareroot this year: - You can see the root system. When it comes to B&B and containerized trees, the roots are hidden below the soil, so you can’t tell if they’re twisted (girdled) around the trunk. But with bare-root trees, the entire root system is exposed, so what you see is what you get.
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