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It is a long-time investment when you decide to plant a tree or plant shrubs in your lawn or yard.
While they come with a lot of long-term benefits for your property, it’s also important that you properly take care of them so that they can get set up for the long haul on your property.
You might be wondering how you can take proper care of your trees and shrubs, especially during the early stages of planting them. In this article, we will talk about how you can do so in a manner that they can grow up properly with proper health and looks.
But first, let’s have a look at how you can choose the right type of tree to plant on your property, and also how to choose the right place for planting them.
Choose the Right Type of Tree and the Right Place
Caring for your trees starts very early, as it starts with selecting the right tree for your property and then planting it in a proper place. You have to make sure that your trees thrive properly in the place you are going to plant them, especially after fully growing.
You have to take your end goal into account while planting the trees, and it will determine the suitability of various trees. You need to determine if you are planting them for shade, aesthetics, windbreak, privacy, or just as a street tree.
At the same time, you’ll also have to take the maximum spread and height of the trees into account. Soil conditions and sun exposure also need to be considered. If you want trees that won’t clash with overhead utility lines, you can go for short flowering trees.
You can go for large deciduous trees and plant them on the west, southwest, or southeast side for having a cooling shed in the summer, and they won’t obstruct the warm winter sunlight during winter. In the north, you can go for evergreen windbreaks that will block cold winds during winter.
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Selecting Healthy Trees
You need to choose healthy trees for planting, as proper tree care starts with that. You should go for bare-root seedlings, where the roots should be fibrous and moist.
And the roots of the deciduous seedlings should be equal to the length of the stem. If you choose healthy trees, to begin with, tree management becomes a lot easier.
When it comes to burlapped and bald trees, the root balls should be firm to the touch. Also, they should be adequate as per the size of the tree. And when it comes to container-grown trees, the roots shouldn’t be circling and large. Also, the pruned ones should be cleanly cut. Roots and soil should be tightly joined.
Apart from these, the limbs and trunks need to be free of any damage or injury, and insects or diseases. The branches should be nicely distributed around the trunk. After you are done planting the tree, here are the things you will have to do-
Mulching Properly
It’s really important to mulch after planting a tree, as it helps insulate the soil. It helps provide a buffer from cold and heat. Also helps retain water so that the roots can remain most.
Mulching also helps prevent soil compaction and keeps weeds out to help the roots get proper nutrition. It also helps decrease lawn mower damage.
In order to add mulch around the tree, you need to remove the grasses within an area of 3 feet. Natural mulch such as bark pieces or wood chips can be used for this and pour them 2-4 inches deep within the circle. Make sure that the mulch doesn’t come in contact with the tree’s trunk.
Watering The Trees
Watering your trees is a vital part of caring for them, but it’s difficult to determine exactly how much water your trees need at a given time. You have to water a tree immediately after planting it. Also, make sure to saturate the tree’s root ball by turning the hose on for several hours.
As a newly planted tree spends a huge amount of energy trying to establish its roots in the soil during the first two years of growing, it faces a difficult time in dealing with drought and heat. Especially during the summers of the first few years.
During those times you can provide water to the tree, and cover the soil with pine straw, bark mulch, or wood chip mulch in order to make things easier for the tree.
Also, the growth of the roots of the tree will speed up with deep watering. The soil will remain moist to a deep position with deep watering, and all the roots get access to water in that case.
You need to be careful about the volume of water while watering. While not watering is harmful, too much watering is bad for the tree as well.
When it comes to a newly planted tree, for the first three weeks it’s better to water it three times each week during spring and summer. During the fourth to sixth week, you can go twice a week, and then once a week after that.
If you plant the tree during fall or winter, watering the new plant twice a week is fine for the first week, and then you can go only once for the next 3 weeks depending on the dryness of the soil. You don’t have to water your plants much in winter. And you can entirely skip the watering during heavy rains.
Pruning Your Trees
You might have to prune your trees from time to time based on various reasons. You can go for the removal of dead woods or light pruning any time of the year.
However, the most common practice is to prune during dormancy in the winter, as it causes new growth with a vigorous burst. If you are looking forward to that, you can go for winter pruning or pruning before the rising of sap during early spring.
You might also have to prune to get rid of defective limbs, as well as limbs with diseases, insects, damages, etc/ Also if you want to direct the growth by slowing the growth of the branches, you should do the pruning during summer, or soon after the seasonal growth.
Also, tree wounds seem to take a long time to heal during falls, and decay fungi profusely spread their spores during that time. So, it’s better not to prune your tree then.
Taking Care of Shrubs
Medium or small-sized woody plants are known as scrubs. They can be a great addition to your property and help increase the aesthetic value of your lawn or yard.
You can plant them to increase the beauty of the overall appearance of your lawn. You might have to take some of the similar steps as above while taking care of your shrubs. These steps are-
- Planting them at the proper time
- Scheduling the watering process for your newly planted shrubs
- Fertilize your shrubs by maintaining a proper schedule, as it’s important to fertilize them during spring or the blooming season.
- Staking or tying the branches
- Pruning at a proper time
- Mulching to retain the moisture
- Looking out for insects or pests on the lawn
Final Words
Whenever you plant trees or shrubs on your lawn or yard no matter the reason, you must take care of them properly so that they can have proper and healthy growth and fulfill your needs properly.
You can’t just sit away after planting them and wait for them to grow up. You will have to go through proper steps to take care of them like the ones mentioned above so that they can grow up in a proper and healthy manner.
