just about everything you said.. confuses me... but its probably the clay soil stuff of your other post ...

i can not plant now.. because the soil is frozen solid ... if it wasnt.. its planting time ... wet.. dry.. whatever ...

yet you say you cant plant.. unfrozen soil???

i dont know about unpotted.. stressing.. root pruning.. stressing...repotting... and then planting.. stressing again ...

just off the cuff ... i will continue to mull it ... but i say get the load of topsoil .. create your individual planting mounds.. and plant them ... [that is to say.. if you can actually get topsoil delivered .. lol ]

the alternative... is to hold them over.. if you think the timing is truly off ...

i did this last year with some stuff... had some spare wood chips.. and placed all the pots and basically buried the pots in woodchips .... like you see in many nurseries ....

dont panic man ... you have at least a month to get this done ....

ken

Hi Rick,

Best to disturb the roots only once if possible. Root-surgery should be done at planting time. You'll also want to remove as much of the medium as you can. If you're planting in a heavy soil, bare-rooting is your best option.

The best time to do this is when the plants are still dormant of course, but shortly after budbreak is nearly as good. If it's a little later and there's a lot of soft new growth, you may want to wait a few weeks to allow it to harden a bit at least, but don't wait too long. You want the roots to begin recovery before the heat hits.

If you do root surgery now, repot, and then plant in a months time, you'll be hitting the roots again just as they're starting to recover. If you really want to go that route, pot them now into something like Al's gritty mix or Missouri Gravel Bed, from which the root sytem can be removed easily and with minimum disturbance. Still better to wait if you can swing it.

Alex

When I'm getting plants this time of year I will do light root surgery and up-pot if necessary. Only had to do a couple this year thus far. I do this in case they start to break bud before I can plant.I saved most my pots so its much more convenient.

I understand your frustration with planting. Its takes forever for clay soil to become workable this time of year.

Always get your plants as early as possible from the PNW. Usually that last week of Feb or 1st week of March for my area. Otherwise wait until after your last frost. Those plants are outside in black pots. If its 50 and sunny those plants start popping.

This is the reason I'm annoyed with nurseries as they wait until May to get evergreens from Iseli and Buchholz. I can't do any root surgery and too impatient to up-pot and wait until Fall to plant. Only nice thing is that the growth is hardened and the threat of frost as passed.

This is the very reason Western Evergreen and Conifer Kingdom are money. I can still get decent sized stock at a nice price when "I" want it shipped. Now I can plant dormant and not worry about cutting a few roots here and there.

If the roots are so deformed you can't just untangle and pull open them open at planting, without a lot of cutting the specimens will probably be apt to fail later anyway - and should be given up on.

Large-growing kinds planted with severely knotted main roots can actually become hazards once the tops get big and heavy enough, due to inadequate anchorage.

New root growth is caused by hormones produced by winter buds when these start to grow in spring. So planting with the root growth schedule in mind occurs before the buds come to life in spring. After the buds open and the growth of new roots in spring has occurred root growth minimizes until fall, while the plant concentrates on new shoot growth etc. during the spring and summer - the way to dodge summer drought effects is to plant in fall.

Fall is the time when 60% of root elongation for the entire year occurs. This is the stretching out of existing, undamaged roots, and is triggered by the maturing of winter stem buds - fall planting needs to occur before these buds are set in order to have the existing root tips then penetrate deeply into the new planting site.

This post was edited by bboy on Wed, Mar 26, 14 at 13:54

"fall planting needs to occur before these buds are set in order to have the existing root tips then penetrate deeply into the new planting site."

bboy, when does this happen, early, mid, or late fall. Deciduous tree clue, before the trees turn color, when they have colored up, or after the leaves fall?

I'm trying to learn here, too.

So, if good stock is available in Spring, but you have to plant in Fall, do you just hold over the pots, or pop them out and pop back into larger pots without disturbing the root mass, and just fill around with potting mix?

Ken - It's a clay soil thing... right now the soil is unfrozen, but it has the consistency of thick mashed potatoes. It actually isn't bad to work with during periods of dryness like late spring/beginning of summer. It crumbles like any other dirt. The only way for water to get out of the clay in spsring is through plant absorption. Right now everything is dormant and we've had an abundant of rain/snow this year.

Alex - I've decided to hold off on doing anything to the roots... I may have found a way around planting to late

Will - Some of the new ones I got were starting to push, but also a few of the ones I had left over from fall also started. A week or two ago we had temps pushing 65 & sunny. The ones I mentioned aren't in full growing mode, their buds just started to soften especially the pines. But next year I do think I'll have them shipped in February.

Bboy - I inspected all the plants last night, actually they aren't to bad. Root surgery is kind of the wrong world now. None of them need the knife... most of them I should be able to untangle fairly easy. With the small hair like roots, I'm sure I'll accidentally tear some though.

I may have found a little bit of hope in getting all of these planted before anymore start to push. I went digging in the yard yesterday and the top 1' of the soil is still unworkable. It no longer holds water like in my other soil post, but the soil is still very sticky/moist.... it doesn't crumble.

I have a small hill/slope that water runs off in my wooded area. I dug past the first 1' of soil in this section and found some dry/almost workable stuff. Since I'm surface planting, I may just take my tractor cart back their, discard the first foot of soil and start loading up the dryer stuff. Hopefully by next weekend I'll start to get these guys into the ground... pending no more snow or rain.

Do you guys think surface planting will be OK? Any Pros/Cons? My only concern is that maybe later if the plant doesn't root into the native soil. I plan to dig up the grass/soil in a 4' diameter and flip it over so the roots can work their way down. Then just set the plant on the surface and pile dirt around. Ultimately creating a 4' diameter x 1' high mound for each plant. It's a little more work doing it this way, but it may keep the plant holes from filling up with water next winter.

This post was edited by ricksample on Thu, Mar 27, 14 at 8:09