Starting Right with Fall Set Trees and Shrubs 



By F. F. Rockwell, £5,., 



PLAIN DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING 

 FALL-PLANTED NURSERY STOCK LIVE 

 —GOOD REASONS FOR SETTING 

 OUT ORNAMENTALS AT THIS TIME 





Evergreen shrubs, like 'rhododendron, should be planted 

 very early in fall, otherwise defer till spring 



THE following directions are for 

 the gardener who has had little 

 or no experience. Long lists and 

 descriptions are purposely avoid- 

 ed. The subjects is reduced to its simplest 

 terms, to enable the beginner to succeed 

 from the start with what he attempts along 

 this line. 



First of all the prospective planter should 

 make up his mind to begin work at once. 

 Now is the best time of the whole year for 

 planting trees and shrubs of practically all 

 kinds. It is the best time of year for the 

 gardener, and the best for the shrubs. The 

 ideal time for planting is as soon 

 as possible after the first hard 

 frosts. That means that you 

 must get busy at once, because 

 your shrubs should be ordered 

 and the ground prepared for 

 planting in the meantime. So 

 the first thing to do is to write 

 to three or four reliable nurser- 

 ies for their catalogues, if 

 you haven't some already on 

 hand. While you are waiting 

 for these to arrive, make your- 

 self familiar with the general 

 principles included in the follow- 

 ing paragraphs. 



The first thing to fix in mind 

 is that, during the first year more 

 shrubs are killed by care than by 

 abuse. After that it is the other 

 way around. The average gar- 

 dener begins with shrubs with 

 the idea that they should be 

 kept wrapped in cotton batting 

 and handled with kid gloves. 

 Consequently they are covered 

 in so tenderly and gently when 

 being planted that they are loosened up by 

 the fall and winter winds, and the freezing 

 and thawing of the ground, and as a con- 

 sequence die before the year is out. The 

 first lesson to learn is to get them into the 

 ground solidly. Jump on them with both 



Early flowering shrubs like spirea and forsythia planted now 

 and not pruned will give a good show of flowers next year 



feet! If you do that in the proper way you 

 can do it literally, and they will be all the 

 better for it whereas if you simply cover the 

 earth in and press it down with your fingers, 

 as you would when setting out a pansy or a 

 verbena in the spring, the shrubs will pretty 

 certainly be lost. 



The second most important lesson to 

 learn is about the winter mulch for the first 

 year. Shrubs set out in the fall should be 

 mulched generously the first winter. After 

 that most of them can take care of them- 

 selves. But — this generous mulch is not to 

 keep them frotn freezing: it is to keep them 



Plant trees and shrubs now to relieve the winter appearance of the lawn 



frozen! If you study Nature (as all good 

 gardeners should), you will see that there is 

 method even in Jack Frost's madness. With 

 a silent hand, he strips the forests, and the 

 shrubs in hedgerow and garden, of their 

 leaves, dropping them down through 



81 



Now is the ideal time to move large specimen flowering 

 shrubs and get the full benefit next spring 



the golden afternoons. He is getting his 

 mulch ready: and when the ground freezes 

 and the winter winds come, the leaves are 

 whirled about in banks and drifts and form 

 an effective covering for Nature's seedlings 

 and bulbs and hardy borders. 



To take up in detail the work of planting, 

 let us begin with the arrival of the stock 

 from the nursery. It has been grown all 

 summer, possibly two or three summers, 

 carefully cultivated in "blocks" in the 

 nursery. Such shrubs as require trans- 

 planting and pruning have been given the 

 necessary care, so that they are, or should 

 be, of even, shapely growth, 

 with a mass of fibrous roots, 

 instead of the long tap and 

 branch roots which they would 

 form if left to grow undisturbed. 

 They are usually packed care- 

 fully enough so that the roots, 

 even where most of the soil has 

 had to be taken off, are still in 

 good moist growing condition 

 when received. If through de- 

 lay, or for any other reason, the 

 packing and roots are dry when 

 you get them, place the roots, 

 packing and all in shallow water 

 in a pan or tub, and let them 

 absorb moisture gradually, giv- 

 ing more if needed until they 

 have soaked up all they will. 

 Do not get the whole mass wet. 

 From the time the plants are 

 received until they go into the 

 ground, keep them under a shed 

 or elsewhere, protected from 

 both wind and sun. If by any 

 chance they have to be kept a 

 week or so, dig a shallow trench 

 in moist soil in a sheltered position and 

 "heel" them in, first cutting the bundles 

 and loosening the individual plants so that 

 air can circulate among them. Plants that 

 are left packed too tightly, especially if they 

 can get wet, very quickly lose some of their 



