Transcript
Plant People: Thank
Jessica : Hello.
Plant People: I know. Two of us, we don't make as much noise with just two. Just Ray and Jess today, the other two pod peeps, are off doing big things.
Jessica : Just the two of us.
Plant People: Just us pre-holiday today.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Sometimes we have to do that for holiday special. We call them special episodes, and we we do say sometimes that they're shorter episodes. We've learned not to say that because even with only two of us, sometimes we go the full allotted time of around an hour or so.
Jessica : Yeah, I think that happened last year. We were like, this is going to be a short 20 minute, maybe 30 minute episode. And then we went the entire time talking about holiday plants or something.
Plant People: It was over an hour. Yeah, we may have actually went longer. Yes, we we digressed and expounded and did all the things.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: And the episode is, we're not going to make that promise today that it'll be a shorter episode, even though we are in the midst of holidays, spelled H-O-L-I-D-A-Z-E, because that's what I feel like.
Jessica : Right.
Jessica : Yes.
Plant People: We're from from um kind of Halloween, which I know is a whole thing at your house, Jessica.
Jessica : Yes, definitely.
Plant People: Halloween is at our house, too. Between that and New Year's, it's just one big blur for us. um It is it is a lot.
Jessica : Yeah. All the burr, what do they say? Like the burr holidays, right? It starts with September, like September, October, November, December.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : It just like goes nonstop.
Plant People: Yes.
Jessica : Yeah. We're, we're getting ready for Thanksgiving and trying to coordinate the forgotten holiday.
Plant People: I call that the forgotten holiday. I mean, sometimes sometimes it gets sandwiched in between like two big decorating holidays like Halloween and Christmas, but I shall not forget Thanksgiving.
Jessica : Mm-mm.
Plant People: I shall celebrate it as much as I can.
Jessica : She'll not.
Plant People: I may not decorate as much, but I will celebrate Thanksgiving. Thank you very much.
Jessica : Yeah. Yeah. Getting ready, trying to coordinate all the meals. If, you know, you're right. If you're fortunate, I sit consider, I know sometimes some bigger families get frustrated that they have multiple ones to go to, but you should be thankful.
Plant People: Too much good food.
Jessica : Thankful you have multiple dinners to go to, right? um But trying to coordinate those on their own individual day versus, you know, my husband and I one year went to like two or three dinners, like all in like a 24 hour period.
Plant People: Enjoy the bounty.
Plant People: Oh my goodness. Yeah. With other families.
Jessica : And we were like, never again. coma.
Plant People: Food comas.
Jessica : Mm hmm. ah boo
Plant People: Just, uh, yeah. I tell you the key to happiness, maybe be stretchy pants when that is involved and dressing comfortably and plan on no activities after that meal, just kind of sit and digest.
Plant People: And it's remember Jessica, it's a marathon, not a sprint like
Jessica : That's right.
Plant People: But am I able to pace myself? No, I just absolutely blow it out for the first deviled eggs that I see. And it wrecks me for the rest of the Thanksgiving meals. It's all about deviled eggs for me.
Plant People: that That's
Jessica : And there's like, you know, different houses have different like things you look forward to Right.
Plant People: like different kind of traditions or whatever.
Jessica : Like Yeah, traditions or just like what they're serving, you know, like like what my like mom's, like the stuffing, that's what I'm looking forward to at her house, right?
Plant People: Yeah, yeah. Yes. Mm hmm.
Plant People: her
Jessica : Or the broccoli casserole versus like my grandma always makes this great ham, right?
Plant People: Oh, the broccoli, the casseroles.
Jessica : And so I'm excited about the ham because she doesn't like turkey.
Plant People: Well, I'm glad you mentioned protein. You mentioned protein people ah that at least I've talked to and myself included, when we talk about like all the wonderful food, I'm talking about all the carbs, like you said, casserole, and I didn't hear anything else about what you said, except for stuffing.
Jessica : Yes.
Plant People: Now stuffing balls, that's kind of a newer thing. I'm, you know, within our family, um, it's actually the round balls of stuffing, which has more crust, but it's all the carbs, but there is actually protein ham and what Turkey, uh, for Thanksgiving.
Jessica : Turkey.
Plant People: So, so what are you, are you team carb or team protein for primarily, uh, for Thanksgiving or both?
Jessica : I guess i would be team team carb, I guess, because I really do love all the sides.
Plant People: I do.
Jessica : I love all the sides, but I love turkey, too.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Jessica : i have I have been known to request... ah My birthday is in March, and I have been known to request Thanksgiving ah for my birthday meal because i I like turkey and stuffing and broccoli casserole and all of those those things.
Plant People: All the traditional fixings.
Jessica : Yeah. Yeah. So...
Plant People: Oh, absolutely. Um, what else you guys do? Because usually for Thanksgiving, do you guys have anything that you do every year? I mean, some people kind of right afterwards, put up a tree or some people watch some sports or maybe a parade. Like what do you guys do?
Jessica : Yeah, our thing is i always remember growing up, we'd always watch the ah Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and then always like hope to get to watch it till the end to see Santa ah because all of our family, we don't live that far away, but it was about an hour drive to get to their house.
Plant People: Oh, Oh, absolutely. yeah
Jessica : You know, are we going to be able to see Santa before we have to get in the car and drive, you know, drive to get there?
Plant People: Oh, yeah.
Jessica : But now I think they like replay it throughout the day because we've been we've watched it and then we've gone to a relatives house for Thanksgiving and the TV's on in the background with football going.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : And if somebody flicks the channel over, it might be on um they replay the parade.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : I think they now.
Plant People: yeah And it seems like the coverage over time, at which a parade was a big tradition for me. It was like my thing. to get up and I was like, what time does the parade start? What time does the parade start? You know, i grew up with antenna TV and fortunately that was a channel that we could get, but now the coverage is just so sophisticated of the parade.
Plant People: And it seems like they have a camera on every, you know, uh, unit coming through the parade, every balloon, every inflatable, but, uh, it's pretty wild, uh, the sophistication of that.
Jessica : and hu Yeah.
Plant People: And, and I watched a special one time on the, um, you know, the preparations that go into that. It's just amazing. But to me, the the Thanksgiving Day Parade is like the big show. that is That is right at the core of Thanksgiving for me.
Jessica : Right.
Plant People: I mean, that started off the sort of the egg stealing, the deviled egg stealing time period where the parade just before lunch or whatever would start. And that's when I would start trolling the kitchen, trying to sneak goodies growing up.
Jessica : Yeah. and Like I said, our thing would be like, oh, there's Santa. It's official. It's go time. Like now it's time for.
Plant People: Like it's now it's hot. Now, cri did I kick off Christmas for you guys?
Jessica : Yeah. And then. Yeah, think so.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Like after that, but it's something that my mom and I have talked about recently that used to be fun, but it's not anymore is Black Friday.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : And some people might be like, you are crazy about that. It used to be fun. But there was like a, like a sweet period with that where it was actually fun, where you would get up and go and yeah.
Plant People: Yeah. yeah There was.
Plant People: Holiday energy.
Jessica : And most of the times, a few times that I actually went out and did it, um, most people were nice Right.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : It wasn't like what you see with like the people fighting and knocking each other down.
Plant People: Oh, yeah.
Jessica : But my interaction, most people are nice. But now like you get online and ah the Black Friday sales and savings have been going all month or people just...
Plant People: And nobody nobody is waiting until the day after the day after Thanksgiving. So I think a lot of that's been divided up, that shopping. But, you know, it hits different. I do remember a time period, Jessica, when like when there was no such thing as like Black Friday sales. And then people started having sales.
Plant People: the day after Thanksgiving to to kick off the Christmas shopping season.
Jessica : Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Plant People: And there was this really cool period where it became a thing, but it wasn't such a big thing that everything was just overran in person. ah But then it got so popular there for a while before the popularity gained online that everybody seemed like they were in person in a store.
Plant People: And then that's when it kind of became inconvenient because of just long lines.
Jessica : huh
Plant People: and But the sales were really good and they were really truly on that one day. the biggest sales, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
Jessica : ye
Jessica : Right. Yeah. I remember people would like dress up in like holiday gear and you would see, you know, people getting up at the crack of dawn shopping and then people going out and getting breakfast together because everyone's up at these weird hours um to just go and get these to make Christmas magical for their children.
Plant People: Oh yeah.
Plant People: Sure.
Plant People: Yeah. and ah and Absolutely.
Jessica : Right. Yeah.
Plant People: And I remember several years ago and it's when I first moved to central Kentucky, it must've been 14, 15 years ago that, I'd gotten up and Jennifer and I decided to go really early to you know go shopping in person and do all the holiday things. And we had the first snow that year and it had started happening the day after Thanksgiving and the timing was perfect.
Plant People: And that's one of those memories that kind of just sticks around in my head. And I remember that, but that cool in-person shopping experience. And and I think as as much as anything to me, it was that ah holiday energy.
Plant People: you know, that people had in the Christmas music's playing in the mall or in shopping, you know, centers and things.
Jessica : Right.
Plant People: And, and I loved all of that.
Jessica : A lot of places do, and this kind of ties in, kind of, let's talk about trees. Um, People do their tree lightings, right? After Thanksgiving.
Plant People: Yeah. Oh yeah.
Jessica : Like I also remember that as a kid because we did always have, I grew up with a fire department family.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Jessica : So we don't always have the holidays. you celebrate the holidays on the actual holidays.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : And we would have Thanksgiving at a later date. And that would sometimes would coincide when Lexington was doing their big tree lighting. Because a lot of them, you know, put the Christmas trees up that weekend.
Jessica : And then it's a celebration to light the Christmas tree for the holiday season.
Plant People: Yeah, but it goes so quick. There's just so much packed in there ah to get it all done, especially if you have, you know, ah children or an expanded family. You know, it's just hard to cram everything in.
Plant People: I just encourage everybody have a good time with it and try to as much as possible.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Don't go get caught up in every all the activities to the point to where you're kind of stressed. Just enjoy that time. Enjoy, you know, gathering with people. And yeah, don't stand in those long lines to the point of rage.
Plant People: um But saying all of that, Jessica, you did remind us this is a hort culture horticulture podcast. And you did mention trees a couple times, which that's a very so timely seasonal topic, even though it's winding down here in Kentucky zone six, mostly with some zone seven here in Kentucky.
Plant People: ah there's still things to be done in our landscapes, in and around our landscapes, isn't there? So we're not done yet.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: We're not done yet.
Jessica : Yeah. And this is very timely as we are recording this episode. Actually, tomorrow, I'm getting ready to do a big tree planting project with our local tree board at one of our local parks.
Plant People: ah wow. Yeah. Yeah.
Jessica : We're hoping to get 29 trees planted in the ground tomorrow. So this is week
Plant People: 29. What's the, what, what kind of trees are we talking about here? Are they like bald and burlap or container or bear root?
Jessica : They will be a mix. So we will have a couple of really large ones that are ball and burlap that might might actually have to have some equipment to help unload them.
Plant People: Okay.
Plant People: here Yeah. Yeah.
Jessica : ah And a lot of container trees as well, but a little bit on the larger side because we're trying to plant for shade and some wind. ah to help with the wind out at a park near a bunch of our our soccer fields. so um And a variety of native trees too.
Plant People: Oh, wonderful.
Jessica : So we're trying to not do a ah monoculture of trees and have a variety of native ah shade trees to be planted out at the park. But
Plant People: I love the fact you said a variety because that's one thing I've seen. i work in kind of a horse farm country and a lot of those larger farms, I'll have a big monoculture planting because they look nice, uniformity and everything. It looks very nice. So they have a big row of maples or pin oaks or whatever.
Plant People: And if it's anything I've come to appreciate over time, it's the fact that If you have many, many of one type of tree um and a problem comes in, a disease or insect problem comes in and hits one of those trees, it's likely that it's going to hit many, many of those trees in that big monolithic planting, that big monoculture planting is variety. And I talk about that so much with our farms now and encourage them to plant a variety of trees so that they spread out.
Plant People: They kind of manage the risk. so and one disease or one insect problem coming in and just wiping out trees.
Jessica : yeah
Plant People: Love that.
Jessica : And that's, yeah, that's a kind of ties in with this planting of a goal of that. Cause you know, everyone loves like ah red the red maples this year They were bright and beautiful, right?
Plant People: Oh, beautiful. The younger ones, especially, they just, I don't know what it was. They were beautiful.
Jessica : Yeah. So by, you know, we tried to select, you know, trees, native trees that are going to do well and our soils are going to do well, that withstand, you know, our our climate, our environment. ah But we also tried to select ones that will have some of that fall color.
Jessica : So, and it hopefully you will bring...
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : you know, when people are out there using those soccer fields and as these trees grow, they're not only going to appreciate them for their shade and the blocking of the wind being a windbreak, but ah seeing that fall color and being like, oh, hey, maybe that is something i can add in my own yard, right?
Jessica : Have a, you know, an alternative plant.
Plant People: It almost be like a show place or or demonstration garden almost.
Jessica : Exactly.
Plant People: So yeah. And you can talk about varieties and,
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: You know, what makes colors and all of that fun stuff.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Are you guys mainly doing deciduous trees this fall?
Jessica : Yes. So that is the time.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : That's a great point to make. i Now, like in end of October through December, really until the ground really gets frozen, is a great time to plant our deciduous trees.
Jessica : ah Evergreens, we tend to wait more till this the springtime. um
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Jessica : But the deciduous ones, it is go time because they've already dropped their leaves. They're not putting all that energy into keeping those leaves alive. And They will you know get established and they will do some growing in the winter and they'll focus the tree. you know The tree will focus on growing more of its own roots and getting established versus when we plant them in the spring.
Jessica : There's that um not really a competition. I don't know if that's the best way to say it, but it's trying to produce leaves. But at the same time, it's also trying to grow roots and get established and survival rate ah tends to go down. they not as you know They have a harder time getting established if we're planting them that time of year.
Jessica : versus ah in the dormant season.
Plant People: And it's always been interesting to me that, yeah, 100% fall is the best time for deciduous trees. It's always been interesting to me that I see a greater retail availability in the spring rather than the fall of trees.
Plant People: It's just they're more available. Now, that's not to say you can't plant in the spring. You certainly can, but it's a distant second to the best time of year, which is for deciduous trees. And you mentioned the one thing, the critical marker for me is When deciduous trees have dropped their leaves, that's an awesome time. They're going to sleep.
Plant People: And that's typically the time of year we have more moisture. That is the time, like you said, go time. And I think the soil typically the soil typically is a little bit easier to dig into this time of year.
Plant People: um If you can avoid like if it's after a rainy period, the soil also dries out slower this time of year. So never dig in wet soil because that can cause all sorts of problems. But yeah, a great time of the year to do that. And it sounds like that's a pretty good sized project with a mixture of, you said, different kinds of trees going in the ground as far as kind of kind of the root situation on those.
Jessica : Yeah, yeah. So we're hoping, you know, different um oaks. We have different oaks, different all sorts of different kinds that are coming.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Jessica : Maples, um some of our other ah native, you know, different like ah black gums, different things like that.
Plant People: Oh, yeah, that's a fun one, yeah.
Jessica : Yeah. but
Plant People: um I was just going ask you real quick one thing that I usually like to talk about, but are you guys doing, like on the maple specifically, like a tree wrap ah to avoid some of those common problems with thin-skinned trees planted in the wintertime?
Jessica : We don't plan to. What our more our concern is in that planting location is more of, even though it is going dormant, it's dormant season and grass is not actively, and the weeds aren't actively growing as much, ah we are more concerned about weed eater and mower damage that can occur.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Oh, gosh. The number one thing i would say for me. Yeah, absolutely.
Jessica : that can kill a tree really quickly. um we, I was telling Ray before we got started, i had a tree, a class, a tree care class and gave examples of the quickest way to kill your tree, you know, and that is with that weed eater, um, or mower hitting it. And so with our planting project, we're trying to get the trees in the ground, of planting at the proper depth. And we can talk more about that too.
Jessica : ah getting them mulch the correct way, no volcano mulch, and then putting, ah
Plant People: Yeah. If Alexis was on here today, she would be raging at that, the volcano mode situation.
Jessica : Yes. Volcano mulch is the worst. yeah Everyone who's listening, you've seen it. You've seen it at parking lots. I don't know why we still do it um because not to get off on that, but that's and another great way to kill a tree is piling mulch all up on that trunk. It needs to be brushed back. It needs to look like a donut, right?
Jessica : We want two to three inches of mulch around the tree out to the drip line and have about an inch or two pulled back away from that trunk of the tree. You need to be able to see the flare of that trunk.
Plant People: Okay. Especially young trees that are, you know, tend to have thinner bark any which way. And they're in a stress state when they go in the ground and it doesn't, you know, and a stress tree is one that's more prone to, I think, insect damage.
Plant People: And it it being younger, can't tolerate as much of that mulch touching the bark. It holds moisture. It encourages rot, encourages insect issues, all of those bad things. Now,
Plant People: saying that mulching is a very good thing, but mulching all the way up against the trunk is a very bad thing.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: So yeah, that's a, that's a great point. And that's one of the most important things I think people can do is ah regardless of what kind of tree you put out is mulching, especially if you plant that into sod is, you know, lots of other good benefits, you know, like moisture retention and it cools the soil, especially for young trees, but even more than all of that, it keeps all of the lawn equipment,
Plant People: away from that tree because my goodness, young trees, and I just see this so much planted at schools, planted in cities and towns and on farms and at home.
Plant People: It's so easy to just a little minor bump on that trees, let's say a three inch caliper tree. It just takes a little bump to that disturbs a third of the bark around that tree, which isn't much if you think of a young tree.
Plant People: but that pretty much limits the lifespan of that tree. And it may actually, if it's more than a third of the way around the tree, that damage may just kill the whole plant in a year or two or sooner. But yeah, mulch does lots of good things.
Plant People: But one of the things it does is keeps ah the the string trimmers of doom away from that very sensitive bark.
Jessica : That's right.
Plant People: And I'm sure Jessica, you said, You had some folks from like ah your local municipalities there. And that's something I bet you really stressed ah those folks too.
Jessica : Yeah, we went through just we went through planting trees, and but also with tree care, right? With proper pruning cuts, right? Making sure that you're pruning properly at the right time a year.
Jessica : So when you cut a big branch off a tree, it's not going to strip the bark down the side of the tree where the tree won't be able to recover, or it'll take a long time to recover, which just lets in, you know, it's a perfect opportunity for other disease and insects to come in.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Yeah. Talked about mowers hitting it, you know, ah talked about ah watering sometimes, you know, how much you need to give water a new tree versus like, um if you love it too, if you love it too hard, right?
Plant People: Very difficult. Yeah.
Jessica : You love it too much. like Or a big one that we often see is when people are planting new trees, they might have a area that has a lot of clay in it or something and they dig out the hole and we want to make, you know, the the hole two to three times wider than like the roots, the roots are on that, that tree.
Plant People: i know
Jessica : Um, um you need to fill in with the soil that you took out.
Plant People: Yes, nothing else.
Jessica : A lot of people are like, there's, yeah, a lot of people are like, there's lots of clay here.
Plant People: Nothing else.
Jessica : So I'm going to add potting soil or I'm going to add fertilizer. I'm going to add things that make this nice environment for this tree. But what ends up happening is that tree is like, heck yeah, this is a nice environment.
Plant People: who
Jessica : And it starts to grow and the roots start, yeah, it starts going around in that area.
Plant People: Like a pot.
Jessica : That's all nice and loose soil. And then as the tree continues to grow out, it suddenly hits that clay. And it's like, oh, this isn't nice. And I'm just going to stay here.
Plant People: This isn't good.
Jessica : Right. And ah we'll see trees end up declining and dying. And when we pop them out of the ground, their roots are just a big circle. Like they've girdled, they've girdled themselves because they've just stayed in that nice environment.
Jessica : So ah always just put native soil back in and you don't need to add any fertilizer
Plant People: Folks just wanted kind of um amend that to make it better. but there's nothing I could think of I would put in there. Not even high quality quality potting soil, because like you said, it doesn't behave like native soil and the roots love to be in there.
Plant People: And not only that, but if you don't, or you're not watering properly, if you fill that up with just a bunch of potting soil, that's going to dry out so much quicker than our native soils. It just is not a good situation ah when you put that in.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: So that's a great point. And I have to stress that a lot because it always comes from the folks have rocky soils or ah You know, a lot of heavy clay, which can cause a lot of problems.
Plant People: And you have to be really cautious about that.
Jessica : And it's good intentions, right?
Plant People: Yes.
Jessica : It's good.
Plant People: Yes.
Jessica : It's like so good.
Plant People: The logic is seems good.
Jessica : And you're like, you loved it too hard.
Plant People: The logic seems good. If it's good for a pot. Yeah. Yeah. You, you loved it too much. And you ah mentioned heavy clay. So as we used to do a test, I started out working in commercial landscaping. And when it was really heavy clay soils, we'd do ah like almost like an informal perk test.
Plant People: We would dig out you know ah sort of a dish-shaped area that we're going to plant, let's say a tree. And I will tell you, Jessica, you need to talk more about this here in a second, but it is a hard sell to tell people when you already have a rather large root ball that they really need to dig that hole two to three times wider than the root ball because that's an incredible amount of work.
Jessica : Right.
Plant People: That's really important. ah But we used to do an informal perk test on heavy clay soils to test suitability. And sometimes I'd call it the coffee can test where we'd dig out with posto diggers you know, to a depth that that we think we're going to place a root ball and see how quickly that would drain after we filled it up with water. And there was just some locations that were so heavy clay that I've seen root balls, you know, put into a commercial planting situation, big, expensive trees, and they float out and fall over.
Plant People: They float out of the soil.
Jessica : Wow.
Plant People: And I've had that happen ah ah several times. And after that, I just started doing perk tests for larger installations, But if you really are questioning in your mind, yeah you know, the suitability of a site, just do that. See how, and there's, there's you can look up timing online of how long it should take.
Plant People: And it's a lot like a sewage perk test, but it also works for trees. it's ah It's a great thing to do.
Jessica : and We actually have a publication on doing perk tests for trees. So it has, just like you mentioned, the times and things to look for. So we could probably try to link that at the end of this.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Yeah,
Plant People: I keep forgetting we've got that really good publication.
Jessica : yeah and ah I think there's a video that goes along with it too. If you're you know worried about you know the drainage where you're thinking about planting some trees. And also to keep in mind, you know, like...
Jessica : Not every tree is is happy in those locations. So maybe if you do have an area that holds a lot of water, that's your opportunity to consider getting like a willow or maybe a cypress.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Old Cypress, yeah.
Jessica : Yeah. um You got to think about that too when picking out those variety of trees in the location. ah Another thing that I run into a lot with trees and planting trees are at new builds.
Jessica : And people have had their topsoil taken or it's been compacted down a lot by heavy equipment.
Plant People: Oh yeah.
Jessica : And then, the yeah, the trees just struggle in those situations.
Plant People: Hard pans. yeah Or they might do well for ah two or three years, but when those roots hit a hard pan, if it's heavily compacted, then all of a sudden you have decline. You go out and take a look. And yeah, I've seen roots literally go down and you'll see almost a 90 degree angle of those roots where they have to go out.
Plant People: They can't penetrate down, especially for tap-rooted trees like some of your oaks. it's really tough on those if it's really heavily compacted. Yeah.
Jessica : can Continuing with this, thinking of another home visit of like a planting of a young tree that was planted that declined, something that's very important that I think used to be like a, there's a lot of things, you know, that we used to do that we don't do now, right?
Jessica : With planting trees, like painting wounds when you like prune trees.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : um But making sure if you're doing a ball and burlap tree that you get all of that burlap off of that root ball and all of the wire, the cage to the best that you can off of it.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : I've been on a home visit before where a gentleman had a tree that died and he finally was just like, I'm going to pull it out. And I was like, okay, well, let's take a look at it. And once we got it out of the ground, the wire cage was completely left on and the roots had wrapped around the wire cage and it girdled itself.
Jessica : Right. And so that's why it declined.
Plant People: It'll yeah, destroy the roots.
Jessica : So if you are choosing to do ball and burlap, try you know definitely take all that burlap off. get the wire rat Cut that wire basket off as much as you can ah before planting. And if you're doing a container one, a lot of times those roots, they wrap themselves around in those pots. It's a good idea to rough up those roots a little bit before planting.
Jessica : planting containers. And then the same thing with, if you're doing a bare root plant, ah sometimes they have their roots or might be kind of broken or whatever, and you can trim those up a little bit. You don't want to trim them a lot.
Jessica : ah But with all three of those different types of ways you can get trees, when it comes to planting them in the ground, We always need to make sure to look for that root flare on the trunk of that tree.
Jessica : And you can see it even on those little tiny sticks that you get for free sometimes.
Plant People: Oh yeah.
Jessica : ah
Plant People: The color difference you can watch for on that.
Jessica : But yeah, because you want to make sure not to plant them too deep, because that's another thing that we see that happens where people plant their trees a little too deep.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : And then that will cause the tree to start to decline as well.
Plant People: I've even seen the recommendation, Jessica, depending on if you have, ah you know, one of the three main types, bottom burlap container grown or bare root. I've even seen on larger trees of lifting that an inch or two,
Plant People: above to allow for settling, especially if you have loose soil in the bottom of the hole.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: If you have to err, err on the side of planting a tiny bit higher, especially for larger trees that have a lot of maybe loose soil in the bottom, because that will settle some. But that that's an ah yeah that's a good info, Jessica, that each type of tree that you purchase is a little bit different. There's nuances to each. I mean, ah there's things I like about each,
Plant People: and things I watch out for for each. For instance, I know that on container-grown plants, I really like pulling that off. And like you said, scruffing up the roots and container-grown stock, if it's held too long, sometimes has roots that start to circle.
Plant People: That's a big problem years down the road of you know trees like maples. You'll see girdling roots, which is a ah more common problem than you would think, where the roots encircle and eventually just strangles a plant or strangles larger roots and causes
Jessica : Oh.
Plant People: early decline in the life of that tree. That's pretty, it's a little bit more common if you're not paying attention with container grown plants. um So you have to watch out for that. Not only that, but on container grown plants, I visited big nurseries and I had a nursery I kind of managed.
Plant People: I had to really watch the way that we grew container stock because those south facing containers, we had to rotate those because you would have like root death on one side of the container.
Jessica : um
Plant People: So you kind of got to watch out for that as a homeowner. make sure all the roots are in good shape, they're living, they're viable. And that's pretty common. That's something we don't talk a lot about, but being on the nursery side for a while, I saw that.
Plant People: um But bare root trees, I do like. ah They don't have much presence in the landscape, but I love the fact that number one, you have to dig a smaller hole because I'm lazy.
Jessica : It is.
Plant People: ah You have to dig a smaller hole. You do have to be careful how you place the roots ah But those seems like those smaller trees, once they get started, they sometimes catch up with a larger tree, maybe that you planted in a container.
Plant People: It's amazing ah how quick they just don't have any presence when you stick it out there.
Jessica : it is
Plant People: It's not instant gratification. And that's the only knock I have against. And it's really sort of ah it's not a it's not a thing except in our minds, but they don't have any presence when you stick them out. So I'm like, well, put some mulch around it. you At least you'll be able to see a little bit better.
Jessica : I got to see a great example of one of my ah volunteers here at the office is a retired forester. And at his house, he has planted ah so many trees. And he has a great example of that in his own yard where somebody had given him a ball and burlap ah oak tree.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : And I think it might have been a bur oak. We know they grow slower and stuff, but they grow semi-fast when they're in their younger stage.
Plant People: yeah
Jessica : But he had a ball and burlap one and he had a bare root one planted. And over like a five-year period, that bought that bare root one had almost caught that ball and burlap one.
Jessica : Uh, cause when you think about ball and burlap, you like every time they're being harvested, right there, all the roots are being chopped off.
Plant People: You're missing 75% of the roots when, no matter if you properly prep that, you're missing the root mass when that's dug.
Jessica : So they're exactly, exactly.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : So you might have that instant like, oh, there's a tree right there factor, but it's going to take that time, that tree time to heal and grow and put on new roots and then really start to be able to grow again versus those bare root ones.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Like you said, it's a smaller hole you're planting them in Those roots are directly, you know, the roots really are not being taken off compared to the root to shoot ratio.
Plant People: You get 100% of the roots. Yeah.
Jessica : Yep. And they will often take off a lot faster. If you can prevent critters like deer and rabbits and other things messing with them. And I think like the mowers, the mowers and not hitting them with weed eaters and stuff.
Jessica : Because I know as a child, I brought home several of those free trees with like Earth Day. And there is maybe one or two that actually survived.
Plant People: Oh, yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Because they're a little, you know, little, they're like us a stick.
Plant People: You to really be intentional. Yeah.
Jessica : But yeah.
Plant People: And deer damage on those, my goodness, deer damage is one of the, depending on where you live. I mean, that can be, ah they they'll just go through and just munch everything off those young whips. It's amazing how tasty deer find young tree seedling saplings.
Jessica : who
Plant People: So, yeah.
Jessica : But I'm a big fan of ah bare root trees, planting them.
Plant People: Yeah, i I like those. I just don't like the fact you can't see them, but I've planted a lot of those in my life and I planted a, The last big planting I did those was white pines and they outgrew some container grown pines that had a two year start. In five years, they were bigger than the container plants.
Plant People: ah So yeah, I've had really positive results from those. But how about fertilizing? um When you first put trees in ground, do you generally stay away from that for several months to a year or how do you do it?
Jessica : I generally don't fertilize them at all unless there is something not i definitely don't fertilize it planting, but if less something looks off that following year, then I'll do a soil test.
Plant People: Yeah, yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : And I know we've said on here lots of times that you're local. If you're in Kentucky, you're, your local county extension office offers soil testing. um ah Do a soil test then and ah see what things, see how things are going.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Because a lot of times it's another one of those things. Like it it can hurt heard it to fertilize it, you know.
Plant People: Yeah, that those salts, which, you know, are naturally in a lot of our granular fertilizers, it'll increase kind of the salt concentration in soil. And that is really, isn't that really tough on, especially like young tree roots ah on, ah it's really, really the most tough. I think it's tough on all of them, but especially if you're doing bare root trees that have a lot of young, fine roots, it can burn off a lot of those. So you have to really be careful.
Plant People: And I think it was Dr. Fountain, one of our tree specialists who's now retired, He had in a publication a statement that I always remembered, and he said this in his classes, that if it most trees and shrubs in Kentucky, if they're in a home lawn that's fertilized, if the home lawn's fertilized once a year, you don't need to really add any additional fertilizer ah once that tree gets up and going.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: And definitely you don't need any when that tree is planted. That usually does more harm than good. But i I remember that always, that he never really recommended additional fertilizer unless it was out in a you know the back of a lawn or something that never gets any fertilizer.
Plant People: And then he would you know kind of look at that on an individual basis. But yeah, most trees don't need that.
Jessica : Right. You might see it in ones like that are planted in parking lots or something where they're in there.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Like, I don't know. Do we still use the term like a tree coffin? Is that, that was the, yeah, where there's, yeah, really.
Plant People: Yeah, ah really restricted root zone. Yeah, there you go.
Jessica : Yeah. And they might need, um you know, some fertilizer that way because their pH h might be off or, you know, but usually i'd tell people not even to worry about fertilizing them unless something, something's weird looking them.
Plant People: Tree coffin.
Plant People: ah Just some extra boost. Yeah.
Plant People: No, no. looking And another thing you mentioned that, you know, of course, when we're talking about mature, well-established trees that are several years old, you know, there's maintenance pruning that's done every year. But when I talk to folks that have just put, let's say, a balden burlap tree in that's, you know, six foot tall maple, and they ask about like any kind of pruning, they've heard somewheres that they need to balance the roots since they lost a lot of the roots with the top growth. Research has you know, told us time and again, the best thing to do is not do anything like that.
Plant People: The best thing to do is if you have any broken branches or any branches that are rubbing, created wounding, you can create or you can address those structural problems. But unless it's broken or, um you know, causing a wound or it's scuffed up bark in the canopy, really, I don't recommend touching the canopy much on newly planted trees.
Plant People: That's just another stressor.
Jessica : Right.
Plant People: But and Do you hear that, Jessica, that people was like, oh, we have to balance the top and the bottom. And I see people wanting to prune those from time to time.
Jessica : I, I have seen that and I've especially seen it more from people who also like grow apple trees in their backyard and stuff because apple pruning is a whole different ball game, right?
Plant People: yeah Yeah, different objectives.
Jessica : ah Where like you, yeah, completely different.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : So if they've had that, they're like, oh, I need to like, you know, do all this pruning on there, but they're completely different. And like you mentioned, you're only really pruning out and anything that might be diseased, rubbing against each other, already broken from a storm.
Plant People: hmm.
Jessica : I had planted last fall a little schumard oak. And right now it is, it looks like a stick in my backyard, right? But unfortunately fortunate, it was the only one that really had any cicada damage from the summer. And so normally i would not touched that little tree at all, right?
Jessica : Because it air it has maybe like two lateral branches on it.
Plant People: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : But I did go out and i base I did prune it some because I could see the flagging.
Plant People: Limited.
Jessica : I could see where the cicadas lay their eggs. So I know that branch is like going to come off anyway.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : So just to speed up the process and help the tree, I went ahead and just snpped snipped it real quick.
Plant People: You got ahead of it. Yeah.
Jessica : But otherwise, Pretty easy. Like we're not like, right. We said, we're like going to plant it We're not going to fertilize them and we're not going to touch them and we're going to let them do their thing. You know, we're just going to.
Plant People: You're going to put them at the proper depth. You're going to dig a big hole, whether you like it or not.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: If the, if it has a 36 inch, you know, diameter ball and burlap, you know, on that root ball on that, you're going to have to dig a pretty good size hole. I mean, that's the hardest sell I have for people is getting them to dig, you know, the proper size hole.
Plant People: You know, the depth is one thing that's pretty easy, but when it comes to adding that width, the sheer size of the hole,
Jessica : hu
Plant People: and That's a tough sell for people, but I tell you, it'll pay dividends in the future when that tree ah gets a great start. That's usually the limiting factor that I, the biggest limiting factor I see to newly planted trees is a restricted, you wouldn't when you you only dig the hole about the size of the root ball and stick it in there, it's going to really slow down the first three to five years of that tree getting established.
Jessica : And that's important.
Plant People: ah So yeah, don't skimp on that folks.
Jessica : Also, what you just said is three to five years is I think a lot of people, you planted it this fall and it leaves out this spring.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Jessica : Oh, it should be good. But it's really a three to five year window that that tree could still decline from transplant shock. ah You know, that first three to five years is important to make sure when we do have a drought that you are watering it, right?
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : That that that winter damage, you know, could really, if cold temps could really affect them, you know, during that time, that because that three to five year window is when they're still really getting established.
Plant People: the
Plant People: I consider them a new tree. Yeah. Three to five years is still a new tree to me.
Jessica : Mm hmm.
Plant People: And I, I try to emphasize that point when I'm meeting with people or teaching community classes and you mentioned watering there. um You talk about like frequency and lot versus deep watering in your programs, Jessica.
Jessica : Yeah. And it really, you know, I always tell people to start off. of like, think about it this way. One, just pay attention to forecast. Right. Because like if it's going to forecast to rain and it's actually raining, you know, you're not going to have to be getting out there to water.
Plant People: yeah Yeah.
Jessica : um But you're going to water, you know, a little more. often ah at the beginning, right? And especially the time of year you're planting.
Plant People: and
Jessica : And just because like we're getting ready to plant these trees out here and it's November and we're starting to get into like cold, warm, cold, warm. We are still going to do at least right now, um before it gets really freezing, we're going to have water bags put on these trees or they're at least going to be watered in.
Plant People: Oh yeah. And that's a, that's a very slow watering though. I love those Gator bags or whatever brand that you have.
Jessica : Yes.
Plant People: they And if you're not familiar with those, it's literally a bag, usually green, that kind of blends in with the landscape. And sort of, what would you say, Jessica, they sort of just weep water. They'll they'll weep five gallon of water over ah very slow amount of time, but it's a thorough, deep watering.
Jessica : huh
Jessica : Right.
Plant People: ah though I love those tree bags. I mean, that makes a big difference when you've planted trees, especially you plant a lot of them.
Jessica : And you can do, I said, we can do the bags. People have used buckets before.
Plant People: Sure.
Jessica : I've used other containers on my, but the house I used to live with, which my neighbors were like always confused what I was doing with these containers. They would pick them up for me sometimes. We're like, your trash blew away. And I was like, well, that's how I was watering my trees. But thank you.
Plant People: Yeah. I appreciate that.
Jessica : Hey, bring them back.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : um But yeah, like nice and slow way of watering instead of just standing out there with a water hose trying to like flood it really quickly.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Because depending on how the weather's been, it might roll off.
Plant People: That doesn't, that doesn't do much. Yeah.
Jessica : Right?
Plant People: Well, you could water quickly.
Jessica : It was...
Plant People: What you think is a good deep watering. If you're don't have much time, you go there for five, even 10 minutes. And if you really take a screwdriver or something and, kind of drill down into the ah soil to take a look, you might not have gotten that soil wet more than two inches deep.
Plant People: And that's going to cause, that's not going to do anything much for the tree.
Jessica : Right.
Plant People: And it's going to make those roots go more shallow and it's going to create issues in the future. ah thorough, ah less frequent watering once they get established, less frequently. I would always tell people once a week, if it's really thorough, maybe twice a week if it's the first year, but that's much better than going out every day for five minutes and throwing some water on top.
Plant People: Much better, much better.
Jessica : Right. And like you said, not as frequent, right? We think about if you water every day, then what happens when you suddenly can't water every day and it gets really hot and dry?
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Those trees are going to be like, what is going on?
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Where, where's my water?
Plant People: Yeah. The roots are going to be just under the mulch.
Jessica : And then, yeah.
Plant People: ah And you started talking about mulch, Jessica, depth of mulch. What do you recommend?
Jessica : Uh, two to three inches in and depth.
Plant People: m Yeah.
Jessica : So,
Plant People: So if you go any more than that, it made me think about that. I guess that could also cause trouble if you have like really deep mulch, especially with shrubs and also trees, but it's especially with shrubs.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: I see that a lot where it's a really deep mulch and it almost acts like soil because it's dark under there. It's nice and thick. And if, and if they have an irrigation system, especially in the water frequently, like once a day or something, just in the landscape, they have a nice system.
Plant People: Goodness, ah shrubs are real lazy. Their roots will be right ah right on top of the soil between the, if you have deep mulch right between the mulch and the soil, will be most of the roots just right in that zone.
Plant People: And like you said, if that irrigation, something happens to it, or if they stop watering, you'll see everything all of a sudden uniformly just wilt in whole landscape. So, and that that problem's made worse by really deep mulch.
Plant People: ah One other thing I'd like to get your take on, and you might cover this in your community classes, Jessica, is staking. More for trees than shrubs. You rarely have stake shrubs, but ah what is your take and information that you give out on staking trees?
Jessica : So I usually tell people, unless it is like a high traffic area, unless, you know, it's very windy, you know, you're going to get a lot of wind in that area. um Or if you have a tree, I have my, I wish I could show you all my sad ginkgo picture that my husband brought home for me, brought me a ginkgo that literally looked like Charlie Brown's tree, like bending over.
Jessica : yeah. In those situations, that's when you you want to stake. Otherwise, like all my little trees that I planted at my house now, they're all bare root, but they're smaller.
Plant People: yeah
Jessica : And the few bigger ones I have, I have not staked them.
Plant People: Oh, young trees. Yeah. I love the fact that you usually don't have to because they're just smaller. They don't have a lot of top mass or top weight. ah to there and And, you know, sometimes I realize you probably have to stake if it's a really windy location.
Plant People: But, you know, and Dr. Fountain also stressed this to our former tree specialist. He said, you know, when trees move in the wind, that causes root, it initiates roots and a stronger tree.
Jessica : Right.
Plant People: So even if you stake, I've talked to cities before, I'm like, leave just a tiny little bit of slack ah in there. The tree does need to move a little. That's kind of a natural thing. I mean, if it's a high wind area and it's,
Plant People: really kind of wallowing out of the ground, that's sometimes a problem. You can still stake it without pulling a lot of tension on the, on the staking system.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : And the thing, other things to think about is a lot of times we see where people put stakes right up against the tree.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : you know, you're putting those right in their root zone, right? So we want to try to put the stakes out further to the side.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : So you can get away with two to three, you know, out past that root zone. So when we say that, like how far out do those branches go? That's how far out the roots are going. and Something that a division of forestry person shared with me, and now I will always use it, is think about tree roots as like a pancake.
Jessica : Okay. There are some that do go deep, but when you look at a tree, as far out as those branches go, that's where those roots are going. So it's more of like a pancake versus all the roots are just going straight down deep in that soil.
Jessica : They go out, right? um So putting those stakes out by the, you know, if I'll pass that drip line, you can use things like old bedsheets.
Plant People: and
Jessica : That's what I've used is with the trees in my yard. So it, um, they can wiggle in the wind. It's still supporting them.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : um but it's not really rubbing on that bark.
Plant People: Yeah, you got to be careful of that.
Jessica : Uh, cause you want to avoid using wire with the garden hose stuff.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Um, you could still do like string with garden hose if you leave it kind of loose. And the, the key with that is you're going to take it off in a year, right?
Plant People: yeah And that's a great point.
Jessica : You're not going to leave it on.
Plant People: And I and yeah i said, we usually don't stake shrubs where there was a local golf course that they'd installed a bunch of beautiful is Arbor Vita, Colomer Arbor Vitas. And they had, they'd staked them cause it was a really windy location. Well, I keep getting these phone calls where, you know, they planted them in mass for people because there's a housing development out on the golf course.
Plant People: And so they planted lots and lots of these. Well, you know, the homeowners didn't have those installed. They were part of their home building process, but,
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: They were arborvitae and arborvitae grew up around the, that it was wire that had some kind of coating on it, you know, and then it used nylon rope, which was all good, flat nylon, sort of like seatbelt material once it actually touched the trees and that was all fine.
Plant People: But the homeowners, the arborvita grew up around that system and they never removed the stakes. Now have all of the all these arborvitaes where the tops are dying and breaking out of the arborvitae because they did not remove that staking material.
Jessica : well
Plant People: I mean, to the homeowners, to their benefit, I mean, they didn't put that in so it wasn't on the radar to think about that. So now I've just basically been driving up and down. When I see that, I'll leave a note on the door that says, hey, this is probably the problem.
Plant People: You may want to address it because the tops of those arborvitaes are just falling out.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: but Yeah, yeah, staking.
Jessica : So really just for like a year, honestly, until that tree can get, you know,
Plant People: Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Jessica : get kind of established ah and then take it off. So that's what we've planned past planting projects. We've had to, we've had to do some staking for a little bit of, for the wind, but also because of parking, people were parking too close to the planting trees.
Plant People: Oh, goodness. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jessica : So we're getting ready for those trees to take the rope and stuff off that the rope was very kind of loose. It was just barely, you know, snug on them, take the rope off, but we're still going to leave those stakes in the ground around the perimeter of the trees.
Plant People: yeah
Plant People: Just for like a barrier.
Jessica : Yeah, a barrier.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : So.
Plant People: ah city City trees are completely different because of traffic and them just being in the city that sometimes they're in. There's special ah considerations we have to make. But, you know, a lot of what we're talking about today goes for, you know, like a municipal setup and and a home setup.
Plant People: You know, though when we plant trees, like deciduous trees, great time now. When this recording drops, I mean, you even in December, if the soil is right, it's a great time to plant even ah up into December. If the soil is not frozen and it's in good shape to dig, go ahead and put the the trees in the ground.
Plant People: I get a lot of questions on evergreens, which I prefer in the spring for evergreens. If you have to do evergreens, I really tell people do that. and finish that up by late August, early September. They're much earlier than deciduous trees, which you said, Jessica, that's when the leaves fall on deciduous trees.
Plant People: You know, that's usually what? Gosh, this year, beginning of November. But if I were to, if I had to plant evergreens in the fall, I don't do that any later than the first week of September. Evergreens have to develop a root system because remember, they don't drop those needles and they have more water needs in the winter. My preference for those is in the spring.
Plant People: No pruning. What else? What's a recap here? ah you know mind your watering, mind your digging hole, you know the depth of the hole, no fertilizer.
Jessica : No fertilizer.
Plant People: And of course, you know match the tree to the location. By that, we mean mature height, what kind of sunlight exposure does it need? And yes, thank you.
Jessica : And right tree, right place. Think about when you're planting it right close to your house, how big is that tree eventually going to get?
Plant People: Yes. yes Absolutely.
Jessica : Are you near power lines, water lines?
Plant People: And that is to pray the number one thing. i call it the the puppy effect. When you bring the puppy home, it's going to grow up into a bigger dog eventually, usually. So you have to be careful. Those trees that look really good, that six foot tall maple you bring home and you plant close to the home because it looks good at that time.
Plant People: You have to age everything forward in your mind. And I think most people are pretty good now. They'll say, well, how big is this thing going to get? How tall? Well, you also have to ask how wide.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: and make sure you know that you match up the site location to that tree's needs. So um it's pretty straightforward. But again, you know if you make the considerations we talked about today, i think you'll have a better experience ah ah with ah your trees and have good success making those specific considerations, you know whether it's balden burlap container or like Jessica said and talked about the bare rooted trees.
Plant People: A few considerations to make for either each one of those. So, yeah, there's nobody to wrap us up to today, Jessica.
Jessica : I know.
Plant People: It feels weird.
Jessica : I was just going through my head. I was like, oh, we got we got to say all the stuff at the end.
Plant People: for but What is this feel? I know. So, so how are you, how are we going to wrap this up? ah We're going to tell people as always, we are Hort culture. That's two words that hangs up a lot of people.
Plant People: Hort space culture. You can look us up on Facebook. We're on there. You can look us up on YouTube, Spotify, of course, Facebook, on an Apple on podcasts there. And we also have a very active Instagram page. So look us up on any one of those platforms.
Plant People: I guess this will post pretty quickly, Jessica, here. It's probably going to be November when folks are listening to this. So everything is very timely. And with that being said, i guess, enjoy the holidays, Jessica.
Jessica : Yes.
Jessica : Yes.
Plant People: How are you? How are you? guys What are you the current state of the your household as far as the holidays?
Jessica : The current state is iss getting all the Thanksgiving dinners scheduled.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : So.
Plant People: ah Oh, you're scheduling you and it sounds like you have multiple ones.
Jessica : Yes.
Plant People: So yeah.
Jessica : Yes.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : So.
Plant People: When you're busy doing all of that, just think about your trees as well and get those in the ground. But we thank you guys for joining us today. We'll have a few more of the podcast, the regulars on next week.
Plant People: But until then, we thank you for listening.
