How to Plant Evergreen Trees - What You Should Know

Are you looking for a low-cost method to enclose your yard? Including a privacy hedge in your landscape has a number of advantages. Evergreen shrubs and trees can act as a sound barrier to absorb noise and offer privacy from passing cars and nosy neighbors. The trees can serve as a windbreak to protect you from blustery winds and snow. The best part is that by planting a privacy hedge, you can take advantage of all the advantages of trees, such as their beauty, clean air, reduced stormwater runoff, shade, and shade.

3 Easy Steps to Success Planting Evergreen Trees

1. No deeper than it grew in the nursery, plant the tree or shrub.
2. Trees and evergreens must be planted in soil with good drainage in order to thrive. Because of this, you must make specific adjustments before planting if you're doing it in a heavy clay soil area.
3. Your planting hole must be dug at least five inches deep. larger than the root ball on all sides to allow for soil enrichment before planting.

Before Planting

Choose the right tree type for your needs. Evergreen trees are excellent for year-round screening and noise abatement. However, deciduous trees can enhance landscaping features like spring flowers or autumnal colors. When it comes to privacy hedges, evergreen trees are popular, but you can also plant a mixture of evergreen and deciduous trees to add texture and a screen.

How high you want your screen to be is a further consideration before planting. The nice thing about evergreen trees is that many of them grow tall but can also easily be pruned. One of the most widely used evergreens for planting a hedge is arborvitae. They frequently grow in a variety of environments, are frequently simple to maintain, and make excellent screens. Some of the most well-liked choices are listed below.

The American arborvitae is a tall, graceful plant that could be the answer to your landscaping problems. It is an obvious choice for windbreaks due to its narrow, pyramidal shape. When utilized as a hedge or screen, it almost never needs maintenance. These robust trees look great in pairs as accents on doors and garden gates. And lone trees soften the corners of houses.

The Best Time to Plant Evergreen Trees

The best times to plant conifers, such as pine, spruce, and fir, are early to late spring or early to mid-autumn. That is April through early June, September, and October in my zone 5 region. If at all possible, put off transplanting until a cloudy or rainy day. As a result, the plant is under even less stress. water the seeds well after planting.

• Read More: When to Plant Evergreens

How Do You Plant Evergreen Trees?

In full to partial sunlight, most evergreens flourish. When it comes to things like poor soil drainage, salt spray from snow plows, extreme weather, pests, and insects, some trees are more resilient than others. In terms of maintenance, most evergreens don't need much.

Some trees require yearly fertilization and minor pruning. A few varieties produce needles and seeds at specific times of the year. If maintaining a tidy yard is important to you, you might want to steer clear of evergreens like cypress and spruce trees.
Also Read: 

• 12 Wonderful Evergreen Shrubs for Your Garden
• 12 Popular Evergreen Plants with Pictures for Beginners

Plant at the Right Time of Year

Try to plant new trees in the spring after the risk of frost has passed or in the fall before it gets too cold because conifers grow best when they are planted during a cooler season. It may be more difficult for a transplanted spruce, pine, or fir tree to recover sufficiently to set roots if there is intense summer heat. The best time to plant is on a cloudy day, early in the morning, or late in the evening to help reduce water loss on planting day. Needles on the trees can lose more water in the hot sun. The risk of transplant shock is reduced to a greater extent the more attention you give the tree on planting day.

Give Your Tree the Benefit of Sunshine

Many deciduous trees benefit from some shade throughout the day. Trees that thrive in more shaded areas include poplars, beech, hornbeam, and maple trees. Conversely, evergreen trees require direct sunlight to grow. They don't have broad leaves; instead, they have needles, so they require a lot of sun exposure to produce enough chlorophyll for food. Too much shade will be problematic for evergreens, even those with wider leaves, like cedar trees.

Check Your Drainage

Spruce and pine trees are adaptable to a variety of soil types, which is one of the benefits of choosing them for your yard. However, they won't thrive in places that don't drain well. To get your soil to have a more loamy texture if it has hard, clay-like soil, you might need to add some peat to the mix.
Planting a conifer in a low area of your yard where rainwater might collect during a wet season or in the spring as the snow melts is not a good idea.

Give Plenty of Water

Evergreen trees typically have a high tolerance for drought. Because of their aggressive, deep root systems, which enable them to access moisture far below the soil surface, and their needle-like leaves that help conserve water, they are able to grow. Newly planted trees, on the other hand, are a totally different story.

Never underestimate the water needs of a young conifer. Its root system is severely damaged during transplantation, and it will take some time for the roots to regenerate before they can fully supply the tree with the necessary amount of water and nutrients from the soil. Watering your tree frequently will help it grow new roots, and the constant moisture will make it simpler for the existing roots to support the tree in the interim. Unless the season is exceptionally dry, you probably won't need to worry about manual watering again once the tree is established.

Prioritize Proper Pruning

Conifers require different pruning methods than deciduous trees, which is one of their biggest differences. Where an old-growth branch has been removed from a deciduous tree, there is a lot of new growth. Additionally, they produce suckers and shoots to cover up trimmed-off areas. Coniferous trees don't do this; instead, they only develop new buds in areas of the bark that are still green.

The natural shape of these trees is very particular, and they hardly ever deviate from it. A coniferous tree needs to be pruned carefully because if too much old growth is removed at once, the tree may never regain its health or its lovely growth pattern.

Another difference between broadleaf tree varieties and pruning is that pruning should always be done while the tree is dormant. Nevertheless, you ought to cut off all infected or dead branches at once. By removing dead growth, a tree is better able to focus energy on growing strong rather than fighting off disease, which lowers the likelihood of insect infection.

How to Transplant An Evergreen Tree

Wetting the soil a few days prior to the move is the first step in the transplantation process for an evergreen tree or shrub. It lessens the likelihood that the plant will succumb to transplant shock. Moving evergreens with big root balls is also made simpler by this. About 8 to 12 inches (20 to 30 cm) should be the root ball radius.) for each inch of trunk diameter at chest height. A 45.7–61 cm–long (18–24 inch) trench should be dug all the way around the tree.) deep, then extend the trench under the tree roots to complete the bottom of the root ball. Place a piece of burlap in the trench on the opposite side after pushing the root ball to one side. Burlap is covered with the root call. After that, tie the burlap in place around the root ball. Carry the root ball of the tree to its new location. As soon as you can, plant again in your new location.

Transplanting Large Evergreen Tree

While this method is effective for moving evergreen shrubs, it becomes more challenging as the plant grows larger. The best course of action is to hire a professional to handle the transplantation of mature trees. It will be challenging to work with the enormous, heavy root ball. Well in advance of the move, the mature evergreen should have its roots pruned. This aids in preventing transplant shock and encourages the tree to grow new feeder roots that can be moved with the tree. To root prune, draw a circle around the evergreen the size of the desired root ball. Then, using a sharp hoe, dig a trench along the circle, cutting through the existing roots. The trench should extend as deep as the root ball. Then fill the trench with dirt and irrigate the area.

How Often to Water a Newly Planted Tree?

As previously mentioned, a newly planted tree needs regular irrigation. How frequently you should water depends on the season and the weather, but plan on doing so frequently. A tree can be irrigated in a number of ways. You can water plants by hand with a hose, a watering can, or a soaker hose to apply a slow, even stream of moisture. You can irrigate a newly planted tree if you have a rain barrel and the water it collects. It often feels warmer and less jarring to the tree than water from an outdoor faucet.

Water can be applied incorrectly. Don't spritz the soil with water every day. Every time you irrigate a newly planted tree, it's critical to water deeply. Every time you irrigate a small tree, give it two to three gallons of water. At least five to six gallons of water should be provided for larger trees. To measure the amount of water I'm applying, I like to use a two gallon watering can. Alternately, I use a hose with a watering wand that is two feet long and allows me to easily apply water directly to the root zone. In this article by Gardener's Supply Company, learn more about watering trees.

Afterwards, I advise applying bark mulch to the area around trees. A surface layer that is two to three inches thick aids in the soil's ability to retain moisture and inhibits the growth of weeds. Mulch volcanoes shouldn't form by piling the mulch up around the trunk. The space between the trunk and the mulch layer should be two inches.

Tree Watering Schedule

• Week 1 and 2 – Water daily
• Week 3 to 10 – Water twice a week
• For the remainder of that first year water weekly

You shouldn't need to water frequently after the second year. In spite of this, it's a good idea to deep water every few weeks if there is a protracted drought. In late autumn, I also like to water my evergreen and broad-leafed evergreen trees and shrubs to make sure they have enough moisture for the winter. Desiccation and winter damage may be decreased as a result.

Pro Tips for Planting Evergreen Tree Trees

• Only the high-phosphorus transplanter-type fertilizer is suitable for use during the first growing season.
• By giving evergreens plenty of water in the fall, just before the ground freezes, you can help avoid the permanent harm or discoloration that desiccation (drying out) of evergreens causes.
• Keep sprinklers and downspouts away from the planting area.
• Only irrigate when the soil is 2 to 3 inches deep and feels dry to the touch. down into the root area. When the plant is established and growing, keep using this method of watering.
• A healthy soil mixture contains 50% soil, 25% peat moss, and 25% compost or manure.