Sweating bare-root shrubs

19 years ago

I mentioned on another thread that I'd never heard of this practice and that nobody in this country does it, but thought I'd get a better response in a separate thread.

So which parts of the USA do this? It seems fairly common for some species in the colder half of the country. Does it happen down south? In the PNW? Is it really helpful in those areas, or just a cultural habit carried on by people from colder climates.

I'll let you read up on sweating for yourself if you've never heard, but just quick word on bare root planting in the UK. Here, shrubs and trees are typically dug as they go dormant in autumn and planted some afterwards, but can and have been dug, stored, transported, and planted at any time during the winter or even as they are leafing out. The soil here never (certainly not more than once a decade) freezes more than a couple of inches down and never stays frozen for more than a week or two. Moisture in winter is not an issue even in the driest years.

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Comments (6)

ginny12
19 years ago
ShrubsnBulbs, I've been gardening for over 35 years and have never heard of sweating. I should also add that bare-root shrubs and trees are extremely uncommon here. You almost never see them except in the most bargain-basement type of places. My experience has been mostly in the Northeast--maybe it's different elsewhere. This is certainly the colder part of the country.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
19 years ago
25 years .. and i never heard of it either ... my experience is Michigan, Ohio and the general Midwest ....

god i love search engines .. see link below ...

i will note.. that the weather will not be too warm and sunny .. if you were planting bare root stock at a more appropriate time .... i went through hundreds of roses ..... and never had to do such... because i was planting around 4/1 to 4/15 ... and it was fully consistent with the dormant plant that was provided dormant ....

this sounds more like a process you would do, if you were planting in may or June ..... with the heat of summer just weeks away ....

i understand that it all depends on when you can get the stock you want ... sometimes the timing just isn't perfect ....

and.. hey .. whatever works.. knock yourself out ... who am i to say it isn't proper ....

have a good day.. ken

Here is a link that might be useful: go figure
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plympton_ma
19 years ago
I'm not sure of the exact count (I've been adding shrubs to the landscape for about 20 years) but I know it is at least 500 shrubs thus far (it's a BIG yard) and although some of the evergreen shrubs were purchased balled and burlapped at local nurseries, virtually all of the deciduous shrubs were shipped via UPS, FedEx, etc and were bareroot.

There are many fine, reputable nurseries that ship this way. The plants I put in ranged from 12"-18" all the way up to 36"+ and I never "sweated" them. A couple of years ago I planted 20 viburnum dentatums that were easily 36" and never lost a one. Come to think of it, in all the years I've been planting, I think I only lost one after planting ( a failure to thrive situation).

Regarding sweating, although I didn't know that was the term for what I was doing, I did it many years ago for about 30 rosa rugosa that I planted in early Spring in a windswept location. I can say that in this instance, in this location, it proved beneficial. I do believe the extraodinary wind we got that nasty Spring would have nipped all the tender new shoots as they emerged.

So from my experience here, it's really not necessary---except in special circumstances like above.
Embothrium
19 years ago
Actually you can't say it was beneficial, as those roses all got the same treatment. No controls = no testing of assumption that it was beneficial.
plympton_ma
19 years ago
Well---I'm not so sure about that ;-)

The roses came from Pickering Nurseries, Ontario and, despite being early March, came with both swollen buds and active growth (about 1"). I buried the majority of the plant---but not all---there were 30 plants after all! The weather was really nasty here when I planted them and they were going in an exposed, windswept location to boot.

With the passing of time, the new growth, that was not buried, whithered away and died. In time, as I gradually exposed the remainder of the plant, the new growth, though blanched, had survived---as did all 30 roses.

The roses were big and healthy when they arrived. The new growth that was not protected from the elements died back. Had the roses, in their entirety, been left to the weather, all of the new growth would have suffered the same fate as the portion of the rose that I left exposed.

Those roses were some of the best I've ever bought. Would the plants have had the reserves to push out all new growth? Probably. Was the plant better-off for not having to? Absolutely.

So---the controls actually were in place. Each rose was a control and a test subject. Part of the plant was buried and part was not. The part that was buried lived---the part that wasn't buried, died. ;-)
Embothrium
19 years ago
What I was talking about was the conclusion that the sweating produced an enhanced result. The way to test that theory would have been to sweat 15 of them and plant 15 without sweating them (in same site, with same aftercare), then compare the results in some quantitative way like digging and weighing/measuring them all some time later. Otherwise, there is no way to see what effect the sweating may have produced - none of them went without it.