Planting a tree is similar, in theory, to sticking a basil seedling into a pot.
Both the basil and the oak need a hole, water and some relief from punishing winds and cold.
But there is much more to turning a skinny sapling into a towering canopy of shade than is required to nurse a fragrant herb toward its stove-top destiny.
Trees are meant to last for a lifetime — at least.
Plant them in the right place. Dig the right kind of hole for the tree. Water it generously, but don’t go overboard. Stake it, at first. Talk to it? Sure.
Assuming you treat the young tree properly, it could be there to take care of you — shade, apples, fragrance — into your dotage.
The most common mistake tree-planters make is in digging the hole. Many people, said Gary Epstein, president of Fort Collins Wholesale Nursery, dig them too deep.
“If you plant them too deep in a heavy soil, you can drown them,” he said. “The other thing is they can get crown rot on the tree, and they also blow over because they are too deep.”
The proper method, he said, is to dig no deeper than the container or the tree’s root ball, and go wide.
“You can’t dig the hole too wide,” he said. “You should at a minimum dig it twice as wide as the ball diameter of the plant.”
Epstein also recommends amending the backfill — the dirt you dug out of the ground for the hole — with enough organic matter, like compost or peat moss, to constitute from 25 to 30 percent of the material you put back into the hole.
But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Add too much organic matter, and the tree’s roots “will never leave the hole,” he said.
In addition, Epstein says taller trees should be staked for about a year. The stakes, though, should be removed when the 12 months have passed.
Where to plant? Jim Ord, a regional sales representative for J. Frank Schmidt and Sons, a plant wholesaler based in Oregon that supplies a lot of trees to Front Range nurseries, said most high-performing Front Range trees will do well in most parts of the yard.
In general, though, the more sun a tree receives, the healthier the tree.
Ord also believes that tree diversification is important.
“Have no more than 10 to 15 percent of any one species in a landscape,” he said. “You increase your biodiversity and decrease the ability of pests and diseases to infiltrate those trees.
“What we are trying to do is diversify those holdings, just like your stock portfolio. You’ve got to have diversity.”
Douglas Brown: 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com
