 So we know we need to plant more trees and there's different ways of doing that of course when you hear about Thousands of trees being planted. That's a fairly basic fast process one almost shoves the spade in the ground goes It shoves in a little whip of maybe a beach or an ash or something and stick it in the ground Job done if you're planting a fruit tree in your garden for instance Which is something that you're going to be interacting with and enjoying for a long time and very much in the Proximity of your home then we want to give that process a bit more time and certainly when we're planting trees here We've been giving about an hour to each one So what basically I'm creating this video to show you why it takes us an hour and all the different things that we think About in order to make sure that we give the tree the best chance So let's start with where we get our trees from in what form because a fruit tree isn't just a fruit tree It's very interesting if you know I go into supermarket or used to go into Woolworth's I remember occasionally and and there will be a plastic bag with a Something that looks like a bit like this inside and it would just say on the outside golden delicious or something like that And when you look into that that's very little information and they're very they tend to be very cheap those trees and I would say I would give a bit more thought to a fruit tree because you're going to If it's going to be in your garden, you're going to enjoy it for a long period of time There are certain things that you need to know about And there's a lot more choice than you would get in a supermarket for instance. So We have some trees here, which we've just purchased. It's just going into February. We bought them the end of January And they've been the reason that we're doing this at this time of year is because these are bare root trees essentially I'm not going to do it right now. We'll show you in a moment. These are what we call healed in we've brought them back They've been purchased bare root. They come in a bag and we brought them back We put them into a bed because we want to protect those roots Now um, there's another way you can buy trees, which is often the way you would see in a garden center Which is in a pot so you go into the garden center and they're lined up. They're usually tied to some wires And they'll have a similar looking label on but they'll have a pot at the base And those trees tend to be more expensive. So by way of comparison These have cost 16 pounds each the very very cheap trees for the quality of them These have come from the agroforestry research trust and he sells out very rapidly because they're great trees and he keeps the price down We went to we often do forest gardening courses this time of year and The the venue wanted a Bramley and we couldn't source one from Martin Crawford So we had to go to a garden center and we bought a Bramley in a tub in a pot so big pot and It was 30 pounds So Essentially when you buy bare roots you have the limitation of only being able to transplant so Get the tree and plant it in the winter. So essentially when the tree is dormant So the leaves fall off naturally in the autumn late autumn And then you have that period of time before the buds open and it starts to leaf up again in order to move it Whereas a potted tree you can buy and plant at any time of year So there's limitation but the other thing about bear root trees is you have so much choice so much more choice because they tend to be built put into planted in more of a field scale and There's a lot less work to do in maintaining them because they're in the ground They've got space to do their thing or as a tree in a pot needs constant attention needs maintaining it needs watering obviously But each year it needs potting on into a bigger pot and the roots need to be pruned well in order for it to work well in that pot so for for me for us here we prefer to get bare root trees if at all possible and And these are the last six in fact this one at the back here is one that we've moved from another place That's why it's you wouldn't normally get a tree this big bear root These are more typical These ones that we have here and we've been planting we've planted out ten so far in the last couple of days And we're going to show you how to plant one of these we're actually going to put in this one the jubilee It's a jubilee plum and It's on a particular rootstock so just to say a little bit about rootstocks So a rootstock is essentially the bottom part of the tree if you can see here There's a funny kind of knobbly bit at this point And and so this bottom part is the rootstock this top part is the variety So I'm buying so let's say this particular tree here a grimoire russets the label says Apple Hopefully it's fairly obvious egg grimoire russet. That's the variety. That's the type of apples So if you go into a farm shop and you see a grimoire russet, that's the apples So it's going to produce that kind of an apple And then after the words egg grimoire russet, there's a little slash and it says m26 Now in Britain this is a little joke because we have motorways Three lane motorways for cars to move very fast through the landscape and they are also have m numbers So the m26 is also a motorway, but it also happens to be a rootstock and so the rootstock is Essentially the bottom part of the tree. It has particular qualities And one of those qualities is the size or the vigor of the tree. So When we're Planting the tree we need to know how much space we have for that tree. How big is it going to be? So there's a couple of trees that we're going to prune onto a wire system over here called a spallier And we need the right bigger We don't want too big a tree because it needs to be the right bigger for doing that And there are other trees that we want to grow a little bit bigger, but this is still a garden situation It's not an orchard. So we don't need what would be called half standards, which is your typical orchard tree Which are quite big and you might even need a ladder to get up into or Full standard trees and essentially in an orchard situation They're useful if you're grazing the ground underneath. So Sheep for instance would graze under half standards if you want cattle in there Then you need to have full standard trees and they're big trees and they Basically you need a lot of harvesting. We're just they're just for the garden We've got a number of different trees here and we want fruit for ourselves Maybe a bit of surplus to give away So we're choosing a rootstock the m26, which is a what's called semi dwarfing So it's not a very small tree, but it's also not a big tree either it will grow to three three and a half meters across and height and of course we'll be pruning it Into that shape what's called formative pruning to shape the tree to create the the optimum structure for light and air To minimize the chance of disease and optimize the fruiting, but that's a whole other thing So on here we have the variety which is a grimoire russet in this case and m26 Which is the rootstock and that's the same rootstock we've chosen for all the apples that we've got in the garden this time round The other thing that we got on here as well That's a bit of information about dessert apple went to pick and so on and it's this flowering group B so flowering group is all to do with Pollination because to get fruit you need pollination you need the pollinating insects to take the pollen from one apple to another apple tree of a different variety think about apples that it's such a diverse Species if you like because they are not self fertile you one variety cannot pollinate itself So even if you have two trees that are both agaromat russets you don't get pollination So the flowering group is when does it flower so flowering group B is quite early in the season there's five groups So A to E or one to five and a B which is in this case will pollinate Either another B that's optimum because they're both flowering at essentially the same time or an a which is flowering a little bit earlier, but overlaps by about seven to ten days or A C which is a little bit later, which overlaps again by about seven to ten days If I've got bees two bees together Then they're going to be flowering about the same time for pretty much three weeks Which gives us the optimum? chance of pollination occurring and the more pollination you get the more fruit you get now a few years ago we had a really really wet spring here in Britain and The pollinating insects just couldn't get out and do their work because it was just wet and windy all the time for weeks And weeks and weeks and the only fruit that actually the only trees that produced any fruit were those that flowered late So the ease essentially the ease or the fives depending on what you're reading So really you need to look at My our starting point is what do we want? What do we definitely want so? Jules my partner who were just about to plant the tree together. She loves russets So we've chosen a russet, and then we said what other trees will pollinate a russet? So we've got a flowering group B So we need an a B or an a C now an a is pretty early B is quite early If you're living in an area where you might have late frost or it's particularly high altitude Then you might choose pollinated varieties of pollinating groups D and E Because then they flower much later and less chance of that pollen being damaged or pollination not occurring So we've had to choose we've chosen varieties with similar pollination times But also that they would fruit at different times The ideal is that you get pollination But you also have a long period of fruiting from early on so we have a beauty of bath Which is an early fruiter? although it doesn't pollinate others because it's a triploid, but let's not go there and And and by putting them together then you create Pollination of each tree which then gives you the fruit you want now We're also quite lucky in that we're next door to an orchard So we're not too concerned about pollination generally of apples because of the whole heap of them just growing the other side of the fence but what we're going to do is to There to be a spallion, so I'm not worrying about those today We're going to take this this one here the jubilee. It's quite a big tree at the moment And we're going to plant that in the courtyard garden here Just say a little bit about rootstocks is apple rootstocks are different from pear rootstocks Which are on quints a c or e which are all different sizes or in this case the jubilee plum which is what we're going to plant and That's they're often on things like San Julien Rootstocks this one is actually vva one which I've not come across before But it's about the size that we want plum trees tend to be a little bit bigger than apple trees rootstocks So we don't want this to be too big and we're going to prune it obviously to do that But let's get on with planting that tree Normally we wouldn't dig such a big hole for a tree with a root ball like this For you you're probably going to be digging a lot smaller hole but we've we've taken on some converted barns and We've just been digging our hole in the lawn and discovering an awful lot of stuff in this hole Including a huge amount of large lumps of concrete What we want to do particularly because this is a plum tree and Plums plums don't like it too wet. They also They like just generally good conditions and we're in the west of England. It's not ideal for plum So we want to give them the best we can we can in this situation So what we're trying to do is just get as much of this stuff out as possible and to be in charge of modifying The environment in which it lives and of course beyond that it gets to grow into the space So it's useful to get together everything you're going to need before you do the planting. Obviously you need your tree We make good use of a sieve and a bucket We have particularly shillity soil here which are kind of flat stones a little bit like little bits of slate and We just basically sieve out the bigger bits but leave the smaller particles in because it's good for drainage So we've got some very nice Topsoil and compost mix and we're not going to do the entire garden with this But basically when we're planting trees we want to give them a good start One thing of course with a tree when you're planting your trees You're wanting it to establish its roots fairly quickly and if we feed it too much if we put too much rich Material in this in the whole with the tree then the tree is not going to be needing to go elsewhere to feed Now one of the mechanisms that causes a tree to make roots is flexing in the wind and we're a fairly windy site here You can probably hear today. It's fairly breezy So we're going to put in a stake to hold the root ball, but allow the top to flex We'll talk about that in a moment But putting the material that goes in the hole is a fairly kind of basic topsoil with a bit of compost We've got some fresh compost over here, which we're going to use as a mulch on the surface after we've finished We won't be doing cardboard and wood chip and so on today, but we'll get this far we have the stake which is going in the hole and that's going to Basically anchor the root ball, but allow the rest of the tree to move. So when we're choosing a stake We're not choosing a stake that's as big as the tree We're choosing a stake to basically anchor the bottom third pretty much So that's going to go in in a moment and in order to put that in We're going to use a lump hammer It's a fairly small stake. You can get chunkier stakes than this. This is chestnut Which is particularly good because it doesn't require any preservatives. It's very long-lasting in the ground It has very little sapwood and particularly if you cut it in the winter or it's cut for you in the winter Then it will last even longer because this is sapwood that rots So this is a particularly nice stake. We've chosen a chunkier one of the ones that we have Because this is one of the bigger trees So I'm going to put that in and we'll use this if you're using bigger stakes Then a poster hammer is probably a better way of doing things What we don't want to do is knock the corns off the top of here Which will then encourage water to get in and for the post to rot But chestnut is well worth getting. We don't really want chemicals in our soil And so we bought chestnut even though this was a bit more work to get hold of in the south He's normally you get softwood posts and they just they're pretty rubbish in the ground. This is a root stock That requires staking pretty much for its entire life So we want a stake that's going to last a long time not just a couple of years The bigger root stocks only need staking for a few years until their roots get established these smaller ones Like the semi-dwarfing ones we have here are going to need staking forever And we need something to attach the tree to the stake. That's what the ties are these flexible ties There are different kinds of ties We definitely have a preference for the type with a buckle on and show you how those go on shortly and also because we have Rodents and rabbits around we also going to put on a spiral guard to protect the the base of the tree here From being nibble because in the winter months when rabbits are particularly hungry They'll nibble the bark of young trees in order to get the sap underneath and a ring a ring of that Nibbling will kill the tree and we certainly don't want that to happen And then we've also got some material to go in the hole. This is Mycorrhizal fungi people are becoming more familiar with this now This is an inoculant of a fungus that grows in association with living plants and essentially the The tree or the plant gives sugars to the mycorrhizal fungi Who in turn are very good at finding minerals and exchanging those giving them back So there's a win-win situation. There's different kinds of this This is our favorite if you can get hold of it. It's called Chaos Fungorum And this is a collection of edible mycorrhizal species So the fungi that come out of the lawn the mushrooms you can eat them as well whereas these are a bit more broad but easier to get hold of the root grow is a kind of common garden center thing and Let's hear this mysterious little plant here is a perennial allium which we've grown And already inoculated with some of this so When we plant the tree the quickest way or the best way to get support get a mycorrhizal partner to the tree is to Plant a plant alongside it put in a plant alongside it like these perennial alliums Which we've just grown from bullbills in soil with some mycorrhizal inoculant already And then the the fungi already has a sugar source So it can just go off into the soil surrounding it and it will go and find the tree and give it the best start This requires a little bit of planning. Of course, you got to think ahead So we've got a big pile of these It's about 30 of these in the conservatory Growing I'm ready for the trees. We're putting in Okay Let's get started So we've got our stake and we've got our tree and we need to orientate the tree to work with the stake So if you can see down here There's this graph. This is the graft union. So the rootstock where it's joined to what's called the scion the variety There's this little kind of kink here and we want to be able to attach the tree tightly to the stake and That's going to be easier to do here we are it's here On the side so where the tree Comes towards the stake so we can tie we're going to tie it in two places Because if we tie a tree in only one place the purpose of the the tree tie Is to stop the roots moving not to stop the tree flexing And if we only put one tie on Basically when the wind blows around it also moves the roots So we're going to put two ties on but it doesn't mean that we need to get the The tree itself Attached closely to the stake and that's much easier to do on this side where it comes towards the stake then This way around which would Which gives you a much bigger gap here So what I'm going to do is to line this up the stake wants to be on we're using a single vertical stake here That needs to be on the windward side. So the wind is coming from the southwest over here and and so The tree wants to be on this The leeward side or the shelter side of the stake Because we're not going to tie it right at the top. It'll be attached about here And what we don't want to do is the wind blowing the tree onto the top of the stake there and damaging the bark We want the tree to blow away from the stake So the tree needs to the stake needs to be on the windward side And the tree needs to be angled so that it fits nicely against the stake Which means that we need to put our tree in At this angle So it determines which way around the tree goes in the hole and it might determine how much you need to Dig into your hole. It may be that you've got an elongated root This one's fairly even all the way around But you might have an elongated root that you don't want to cut off That's work out which way around it's going first and then you know what shape to dig the hole So the old paint can is just a very hotch podch way of trying to protect The top of the wood the stake here what we don't want to do is catch the edge and knock off a corner Cause it more like make it more likely to rot So anything to do that job really and and we're just using an old paint can What we want to do is get this in To the point where it feels fairly solid We know that there's a lot of stone in here And there may be a point where it's not going to go any further in fact We may have reached it already We do have a lot of stones that we can pack around here in order to make it nice and firm Again, this is just about stopping the roots from moving around so they get a chance to establish themselves So the next thing we need to do is to line up The height at which we're going to be planting this and what we're looking for is the point at which it was Previously planted in the soil because the bark above the soil is different from the bark below the soil and the tree is much happier if we Plant the bit that was supposed to be under the ground in the ground So what we want to do is to match up the level of the soil with a mark on the tree And it's much easier to see on a a bare root tree that's fairly dry. Obviously in a pot Potted tree that's really obvious because you've got compost right in that place And the best way to identify that is to just put a Something flat across the hole. This is fairly flat obviously and that allows us to then line up If that's the level of the soil Line this up and Essentially, we're pretty much there in terms of where the roots would sit if I leave that alone. It's not going Down very much, but we do need to fill in with some Better soil than we had here. We've backfill. We've basically got the stake in and we've put a lot of The soil that came out of the hole back in the hole But we're going to put in some top soil with a bit of compost mixed in In order to give it a good start So Jules is putting water in the bottom of the hole just to get it started and help settle that down a bit And then we've got the compost And top soil mix that looks so nice And they were giving a very gentle agitation because we want the soil All the way around the roots in all the gaps. We don't want any air pockets It's going to require quite a lot of soil in this hole because we've pulled out a lot of stone That's looking pretty good. Just checking the line up again There It's very convenient that the roots went around the space where I wanted the stake That possibly was where the stake was before And at this point we're going to add Some of this fungal mix Stay there, good Depends on what you get what it looks like This is very much like a charcoal based material here And we get a bit more water on the roots just so they're a bit stickier I'm going to be doing this We don't need a bit too much of this but just a bit to get it started And keep the packet sealed Okay, I'm going to throw in a little bit more for that just in the general vicinity of the soil But keep it sealed keep it dry This stuff lasts for five or six months and If you keep it dry There we are Okay all more So are we putting compost straight in there? Now let's check the height again See that we're in about the right place. I think that's pretty good And then I'm going to start putting on the tie Now these ties um They go a particular way up because of the way the lever on the buckle And so essentially if the writing is the right way up Probably can't see that then it is the right way up. Also this little crimp is on the inside and what we want to do is to keep this fairly close because the buckle is going to be on the back of the stake And this spacer is going to be in between the tree And the stake stop them rubbing now the first one obviously you want to put that low down So it's uh, you put the spacer on first this tends to come loose Go around the tree Through the spacer keeping this then with the buckle on fairly short Comes around and particularly with these quarter steak shapes Try and put the spacer On the angle there Okay And we want this nice and tight because we want to keep the tree firm particularly a tall tree like this one Which can whip around in the wind I want to keep it Nice and tight And every year we'll come back and check this and loosen it off because obviously the tree is going to grow And we're going to need to accommodate that but for now it's more important to Keep the roots where they are so the tree can actually develop And it's the movement of the top part of the tree in the wind that creates Moot the growth of the roots down here so I'm going to tighten that up there And then this little bracket this little pot of the buckle I pull that that grips that that allows me to Put that through there Now this tie is a little bit longer than probably is needed for this job But as the tree grows it means that I can continue to use the same tie And then the second one can do the same thing So this bit to the inside writing is the right way up and we're going to get it the right way around Goes around the tree through the spacer Keeping this bit fairly short like that And Bring that down be careful of the buds So I'm doing this fairly close to the top of the stake But not right at the very top some tight Pull that to rip it And then that goes through there again Now just wrap it around and Okay Right time to finish filling in the hole So we just want to push Down make sure that the soil gets in between the roots And what we want to do is fill up to the top here. So we'll get some more Bit more soil I want to get to this level here It's lovely This is very nice That's looking pretty good and just we're not going to jump up and down on it, but just a gentle Use of the heel Just to gently Press it down around the tree It just ensures that there's no air pockets where we don't want it It's pretty good Okay, I might do a bit more of that. I think a bit more soil A little bit more to go on top Looks so lovely Might be enough for there. I think We want to give that a good watering in So our level's looking good here And then what we'll be doing is just topping this off with some compost some pure compost as a mulch To help protect the bare soil That's plenty I think Not right up against the tree itself Give a little bit of space there for it to breathe but Composting around here and then We'll be Because this is in an area covered in grass What we'll do is we'll cover Best part of a meter out around the tree With cardboard and wood chip and so on. We don't have that at the moment And it's not quite so urgent at the moment because the grass isn't really growing too much But that will be the final thing to do apart from applying the guard so It's a nice little story a friend of mine went into a local agricultural merchants and said do you have any rabbit guards? And the guy looked at them and said why would you want to guard rabbits? So but this is a rabbit guard is designed to guard trees From rabbits Because this the sap is very tasty in the winter months and there's not much to eat So what we're going to do is just Curl it around I prefer the dark ones the clear ones simply Because algae tends to grow inside them Whereas these tend to not have so much of that problem And what you can do as well with the spirals is that you can work around your buckles your spacers So you can get all the way down to the bottom And also protect the tree Further up like that. And there we are Job done So I just want to mention a couple of other staking methods This method works well with bare root trees but of course we've talked about trees that come in pots And essentially you don't want to have to put a stake through the roots of a tree So bare root this works very well If you've got a big root ball and you've got to stake the tree Then you've got two other methods that you can use one of which is to use a single stake but on a diagonal so This this particular method here with the vertical stake or putting the stake on the side the wind comes from So the tree always blows away from it and not towards it However, if you're using a diagonal stake Like that into the ground So what you would tend to do is start it a bit closer because by the time you get in it's going to be down here And tie your tree to that stake now that only gives you one pivot point Which is less good in my mind because you still have that risk of Or of course you need a second stake Um, we're angling it this way because what we want is as the tree is blown by the wind We want it to be pushing the stake in Not pulling it out Okay, so the stake Angles in so that The top of the stake is pointing towards where the wind is coming from Now if you've got a particularly big root ball and even that's not possible Then you've probably seen these outside supermarkets You can use two two stakes Some distance away either side of the root ball and then just use a Tying method in between the two so it holds the tree in that place and you can By that method Tie at different heights as well. So that's Alternative ways of staking your tree Now we've dug a nice round hole here But if you've got a heavy clay soil then what you want to do is to Dig a square hole because the reason for that is that even if you might have a round pot And you've got rounded because you can buy tree spades, which are rounded You can dig a nice round hole Actually, if you're in a heavy clay when you dig that nice round hole What you're effectively doing is making another clay pot And if you're taking your tree out of a pot and putting it into another pot, it still can't Do what you want it to do, which is to grow its roots into the soil and to establish itself So the advantage of a square hole, which of course is nice and easy to dig with a standard spade Is that it has corners So even if you've got heavy clay and the roots can't get through it They can work their way along and into the corners where they can penetrate through Of course, if you've got a heavy clay soil The best thing to do really is to dig a bigger hole And to incorporate some more material because the main thing with clay, of course, is it's very sticky So organic matter is always a really good way of breaking that up It's lightweight. It doesn't weigh much to move around compared to something like sand, which would be heavy And needs quarrying and so on so A square hole is your best option if you're in a clay soil If you're not and you've already got a good soil like this, then this is perfectly good