A plant that is sent without soil or a pot is referred to as bare root perennial. Bare root plants are typically shipped while they are dormant or just coming out of winter dormancy. Here’s how to give these young seedlings a head start.
Examine the Plants
It’s crucial to inspect your plants as soon as they arrive. Each variety of plant has a unique set of roots. They could be thick and meaty, dense and fibrous, or wiry and thin. In no circumstance can the roots be mushy and squishy, nor should they be entirely dried. You can cut out any damaged or broken roots if necessary. Put the roots back into the bag with the peat moss or wood shavings until you’re ready to plant if they appear to be extremely dry.
Plant As Soon As Possible
In the fall, bare root plants are dug up and divided, then kept cool until they are packaged and transported in the early spring. Keep the plants in their plastic bags and store them in a cool, dark location if you can’t plant them right away (above freezing). Get your plants in the ground as soon as you can for the best results.
Planting Bare Root Perennials Directly into the Garden
You can plant immediately in your garden if the weather has settled and the soil has warmed up. As you get ready to plant, soak the roots in some water for up to an hour. To make the roots’ growth easier, loosen the soil. Then make a hole that is deeper and a few inches wider than the roots.
Spread the roots out evenly and create a mound of earth in the center of the hole. Once the hole has been backfilled, adjust the planting depth such that the plant’s crown is either level with or just below the soil’s surface. To settle the plant and ensure that the soil around the roots is moist, give it a thorough watering.
Planting Bare Root Perennials in Nursery Pots
You can start your new perennials in pots if you want to give them a little additional care. It will be simpler for you to manage light and moisture if they don’t have to compete with other plants. It’s an excellent strategy to begin your plants growing while the weather heats up if you garden in the north.
Pick a container that is much bigger than the roots. With pre-moistened growth mix, fill it halfway. Keep the plant’s crown level with the dirt as you continue to fill the container after adding the plant (if the crown is too deep it may rot). To settle the roots, label the pots and give them plenty of water.
Place the pots where they will receive at least 10 hours of bright light each day, such as beneath lights or close to a window. Keep the pots indoors until all threat of frost has passed, and water the plants sparingly until they have several sets of new leaves.
When the time comes to take the pots outside, place them in a protected area where they will be protected from the scorching sun, wind, and rain. The plants can be placed in the garden once they have adapted (give them a week or two). They can also be grown in pots and transplanted at any time in the spring or fall.
Planting Bare Root Perennials in a Nursery Bed
You might also place your new plants in a garden bed designated for young plants. For this, an elevated bed is excellent. Keep the plant’s crown level with the soil as you proceed with the above planting instructions. Once the plants are actively growing, water them frequently after that. Consider covering the plants with horticultural fabric to provide additional protection from harsh weather.
As long as they are watered during the first few weeks, these plants can be moved to garden beds at any point during the growing season. The plants could even be left in the nursery bed until the following spring or fall.
Fertilizing Young Perennials
If at all feasible, fertilize these young plants twice throughout their first growth season—once when they have at least three sets of new leaves and again in the middle of the summer. Use a liquid fertilizer that has been diluted to 50%.
What to Expect from Your New Perennials
Different perennial plants grow at different rates. Peonies, clematis, and alcea typically take a month or longer to show new growth, whereas rudbeckia and heuchera fill out more quickly.
Some newly planted perennials should yield a few flowers their first year. The majority of the time, these immature plants will focus on establishing themselves and won’t bloom until the second year.
For particular varieties of perennials, you can find planting and maintenance instructions HERE.
How long does it take Echinacea to grow from the bare root?
In its first year, echinacea doesn’t always flower properly. If you want to give yourself the best chance of a good display the next year, plant out in the early fall (September or October).
Echinacea will germinate in approximately three to four weeks and generate leaves in three months if you plant them in the early spring (after the last frost) as part of your spring gardening tasks, but it can take up to two years for them to really produce blossoms.
Before planting, should I soak bare-root plants?
The roots must be soaked for at least two hours and up to eight to twelve hours, but no more than twenty-four hours, before planting. This crucial phase will enable the roots to replenish their moisture and absorb water. If roots are submerged for more than 24 hours, they risk losing oxygen and suffering long-term harm.
When bare root plants are delivered, what should you do with them?
If you bought bare root plants in the past, you will need to care for them until it is safe to put them outside. They should be potted in quality potting soil and kept in a cool area, like a garage. While being insulated from the bitter cold, the plants should receive some light.
How deep should echinacea be planted?
Authentic flowers
Grandma’s varieties provide charm and beauty to your gardens. Each seed packet comes with planting instructions, and shipping is free!
Quick Guide: Planting, Growing & Caring for Echinacea
- Plants that require little care and water have robust pink flowers.
- Plant in broad light; loves nutrient-rich soil, yet is remarkably adaptable
- Grow from division, nursery stock, or direct sowing
- attracts butterflies and bees
- Summer to October blooming; tolerates light frost
Full sun to some partial shade From seed to flower: 90–120 days of maturation 36 to 48 inches tall 12 to 24 inches should separate objects in all directions.
Site Preparation
Purple coneflowers are adaptable and can withstand most circumstances. Plants will grow, though, if you provide them with rich, well-drained soil and lots of sunlight. Before planting, the soil should be heavily amended with organic compost or aged animal dung to greatly increase the health of the plants (watch Flower Gardening from the Ground Upvideo). Coneflowers can withstand both heat and dryness.
How to Plant
It is simple to grow echinacea from seed, nursery stock, or division. In the open while a light frost is still possible, sow seeds 1/2 inch deep. Seed germination takes 10 to 20 days. If seeds are sowed early, flowers will usually blossom in their first year (see Summer Flowers for Color).
To prolong the blooming season, regularly pinch off spent blooms or utilize them as cuttings in flower arrangements. To encourage large, gorgeous blossoms, use a high-quality flower fertilizer multiple times during the planting season. Mulch reduces weed growth, retains moisture, and enhances aesthetics.
Insect & Disease Problems
Many garden pests, such as Japanese beetles, aphids, and leaf hoppers, are dangerous to echinacea. For a safe and sensible approach to pest control, check frequently and, if issues arise, take the following actions:
- To remove substitute hosts, remove weeds and other garden trash.
- Put seriously afflicted plants in the garbage after bagging them up safely.
- To combat and eliminate insect pests, release beneficial insects that are readily available.
Where should echinacea plants be planted?
- Opt for a sunny or lightly shaded location. someplace where there is soil
- If the soil is dense or does not drain freely, add
- If the soil is not frozen and you can, you can plant it any time of the year.
- Echinacea doesn’t always bloom well in the first year; thus, plant in
- When planting other plants, leave 30 to 45 cm (12 to 18 in) between each Echinacea plant.
- Make a hole that is twice as wide as the rootball. Add a few pieces of fish, bone, and blood.
- Fill the hole with soil and insert the plant so that it is at the
How long can bare root plants be kept before being planted?
Don’t get alarmed if snow falls or it gets cold when your order arrives. Just remember to do the following:
- Remove snow from the planting area; you might discover that the ground is still not frozen.
- Keep in mind that snow acts as a fantastic insulator, and that the additional moisture benefits plants.
- Avoid letting any frozen dirt surrounding the root system fall into the planting hole.
- While planting, avoid subjecting roots to below-freezing conditions.
If your order is delivered in the spring, your soil can be frozen or otherwise unusable. If so, you should keep your tree or plant in the container until the ground thaws and the daily temperatures rise above freezing.
Please take note that as long as the daytime temperature is above 40oF, you may plant even if the low temperature is in the high teens. If you can protect the roots from drying out, you can put off planting for up to two or three weeks. However, if the delay lasts for more than a week, you should think about adding more damp paper to the bare-root tree roots in order to give appropriate moisture for extended storage.
Our Customer Support Team (800.325.4180) will be able to assist you if you have any queries or issues with your order.
There’s no need to be concerned if you’re not prepared to plant right away now that you know how to postpone planting. You can be confident in your capacity to safely store trees and plants for a brief period of time until you’re ready to plant outdoors if you are dealing with bad weather or other unforeseen issues.
Does echinacea reappear each year?
Frost resistant The perennial echinacea is resilient and can withstand extremely chilly winters. In the winter, plants go dormant and emerge in the spring.
Is potted or bare root preferred?
Huge differences exist. Trees that are conveniently wrapped, propped up, root-bound, resource-depleting, and polluting lie outside our box stores waiting to be purchased by customers impulsively to start their brief lives in the earth. Real nurseries produce trees in living soil at the same time. These plants, which have greater root mass than top growth, have a brief transplanting season. Although they are less convenient, bare root trees are more affordable, real, and make sense for the gardener.
The potted fruit tree in front of Lowe’s in late May, when local gardeners are in a frenzy, is a good place to start. What’s the origin of this tree? It most likely began as a tree that was grown in the field from a sizable nursery. In other words, it was one of the countless tiny trees that were growing in a field of crops somewhere in the United States.
The tree was transported to a new kind of sizable nursery as it expanded. Imagine Florida having many acres of greenhouses. Here, the tree’s roots are pruned and it is placed in a pot. The roots can only continue to circle in place. If it works at all, trying to break this behavior while planting can be challenging and requires cutting roots. Ten or twenty years after planting, pot-bound trees frequently entrap themselves with a girdling root.
Our tree’s container needs to be filled with something from somewhere else; typically, this is a mixture of peat moss, perlite, vermiculite, and shredded bark. The growing medium is usually always sterile (this is done to stop illness and to allow the grower to supply the “correct” nutrition in a scientific method).
As a result, the tree that was previously in the earth is now in a plastic pot, thriving in a sterile environment. How could it develop in such a way and still appear healthy? Chemical fertilizers are fed to it. During its time in the pot, this will be its only source of nutrition. The inexpensive fertilizers provide the tree an excess of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (N P K). Think about a child who is very energetic after eating candies. The tree can be loaded onto a truck and placed in front of your local box shop after producing a lot of top growth under a plastic cover.
Salts are used to create chemical fertilizers. They don’t stick to the soil; in fact, they kill the majority of soil organisms, and when used, earthworms will flee (we are literally salting the earth when we use them). Chemical fertilizers can dissolve in water. These nutrients leak out from the bottom of the container each time it rains or the tree is watered. It is not difficult to picture this water freely flowing through a parking lot and into the closest drainage ditch. It will eventually make its way to the ocean, where it can fuel the algal blooms that wreak havoc on beaches and kill fish.
We are not doing this to cultivate fruit trees. Just so we can sell trees all year long and have them available for purchase on Mother’s Day. As a result, we may use the trees as another product that can be transported simply.
Without pots, people have been transferring plants for thousands of years. It can be done extremely nicely and is simple to perform. So let’s look at how bare root trees ‘can’ be developed. I use the ‘can’ since not all nurseries cultivate their soils; far too often, they pollute our streams and deteriorate our soils, just like the majority of traditional agriculture.)
The ground is ready. It is deeply dug, mixed with compost, and covered with mulch. The mulch is there throughout the entire year. It shields the soil from the damaging impacts of rain, wind, cold, and strong sunlight. The antithesis of erosion, mulch gradually improves the soil each year.
In the Northeast climate, nursery beds (and gardens, for that matter) almost never need to be watered because of the high organic content in the soil and the heavy mulch on top. When compared to potted plants, which need irrigation virtually every day, this
Similar to how crops are planted in the garden, seeds, cuttings, or transplants are spread out in nursery beds. The roots extend out and form symbiotic partnerships with helpful bacteria and fungi since soils are living organisms. Numerous macro- and micronutrients included in compost and organic fertilizers provide them with their nutrition (which do bind to soil as they are consumed by fungi, bacteria, and other organisms that lock them up, until they themselves are consumed by other soil organisms). Trees grow robust, fibrous, and dense root systems in this setting. Their growth can rival or even surpass that of trees that have been pumped up in a greenhouse.
Trees are typically suitable for planting outside or for transplanting to another bed with a wider spacing after a year or two. And this is why it’s harder to find bare root trees than potted ones.
When the trees are dormant, they are removed either manually or mechanically. When they are not fully leafed out or in bloom, they transplant nicely. They are no longer showy; instead, they resemble a stick with roots.
The earth around the roots is shaken loose as they are raised out of the ground. They are difficult to set out on show. While traveling, their roots must be contained in something moist. Sawdust or damp, shredded newspaper are frequently used for this. They can be kept from the elements for a few weeks before to planting, but they must be planted quickly. as contrast to a pot, which can be kept outside for a long time. Once more, the potted plant prevails because it is more convenient—at least for the purchaser.
A branching, fibrous, bare root tree is considerably superior to a potted tree with circling roots that has been supported by irrigation and fertilizer if the health of the plant is our primary concern.
The decision to choose bare root trees is much simpler if it comes down to the health of our ecosystem. There are no heavy pots to ship across the nation, no plastic pots to make, and no potting soil to import.
Although growing plants in pots will always require more resources, there are better ways to do it than the traditional method. Rather than being sterile, the potting soil might be alive. Organic fertilizer is one option. Our peat bogs may be completely preserved without peat moss.
I don’t intend to make anyone feel awful about the plants they have purchased or are now cultivating when I write this. I want to increase people’s awareness of the origins of the goods we consume. The only way the world can change is through our knowledge and decisions. Only items that customers will buy will be sold at nurseries.