DIY Network

Bare-Root Trees Perform Best

Master gardener Maureen Gilmer, host of Weekend Gardening, explains why bare-root trees produce the best results.

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	Unique bosc or seckel pears and many other gourmet varieties can be ordered by mail. (All photos courtesy of Maureen Gilmer)
	Small gourmet peaches are perfect for home-garden cultivation.
	Ordinary peaches or rare varieties are available via the Raintree catalog.

Bare-root trees outperform container-grown cousins

By Maureen Gilmer

Feb. 12, 2007 — My crisp sugar-sweet Asian pears are free, but in the market they sell for $2 apiece. Even at that staggering price, store-bought would never taste as good as mine. Plus, I know my tree has never seen a drop of chemicals. Fresh fruit is a sweet little deal cut between me, the tree, the earth and God.

When the Raintree Nursery catalog arrived with its incredible array of fruit trees and vines, I wished I hadn't already planted my orchard. Pages of exotic varieties make Red Delicious apples and Cling peaches seem like second-class citizens. If I'm going to nurture a fruit tree, I want fruit that's gourmet quality, rare and expensive.

This catalog comes in late fall for bare-root season delivery. Shipping is in very early spring, when young trees grown densely in the field are just beginning to awaken from winter. They're dug out of the ground, soil is shaken off the roots, and they're shipped that way. Absence of soil makes these living dormant sticks as lightweight as possible.

When the bare-root season opens, some of this crop will be sent to garden centers, where their roots are packed in wet sand or shavings until sold. Other batches will go to special mail-order packing houses such as Raintree. There the roots are bound in a moist material and wrapped in plastic to keep them from drying. Then they are shipped when the bare-root season arrives for your region.

Fruit trees grown in containers are costly to maintain and become pot-bound quickly. Once transplanted, they are slow to break out of this molded shape. Bare-root trees form their roots naturally to spread out over a much larger area. So they're not only less expensive than container-grown, they grow faster, adapt to adverse conditions better and will become more drought-resistant.

But the best part about buying mail-order bare-root trees is the incredible range of choices. Garden centers just can't stock that much variety. I savor every page of this catalog. To see what I'm talking about, go online to www.raintreenursery.com, or you can order a Raintree catalog by phone at 360-496-6400.

In the catalog you'll be able to choose from nine different Asian pear varieties accompanied by helpful charts that help you know the right variety for your region. These rugged trees produce fruit at a very young age, which makes them my primary pick for USDA Zone 5 and above.

At Raintree you'll find every fruit imaginable, including the cute (and expensive) little white flesh Donut Peach. There are unusual varieties of super sweet Fuji apples and non-astringent Japanese persimmons you eat like an apple. And that's just for starters!

Place your order early to reserve your trees before the seasonal rush in late winter. When your trees arrive, soak the roots in a bucket of water to fully moisten, then heel them into soft damp soil until you're ready to plant. This is helpful if it's too wet to plant when they arrive or when you're just too busy. You can keep your trees this way for weeks, but it's always better to get them into the ground as soon as they arrive.

Be sure to dig a big hole for your tree so the roots fit comfortably without cutting or bending. Set the graft union facing north so it's out of direct sunlight. Note the change in color on the stem to tell you the exact level the tree should sit in the ground when it's all watered in.

With years of investment in a mature tree, you deserve the best varieties and the most vigorous plants. Don't be discouraged by the pitiful sticks that arrive in the mail, because from each one will spring a thousand summer picnics and pies and jam and all the good health that goes with them.

(Maureen Gilmer is a horticulturist and host of Weekend Gardening. E-mail her at mo@moplants.com. For more information, visit: www.moplants.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)

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