[Image description: an image from the movie Dazed and Confused with text that reads "'This summer is too hot'. Me: 'Have you ever planted trees?' 'No.' Me: 'Be a lot cooler if you did'"
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
227 points (100.0% liked)
Nature and Gardening
6657 readers
44 users here now
All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.
See also our Environment community, which is focused on weather, climate, climate change, and stuff like that.
(It's not mandatory, but we also encourage providing a description of your image(s) for accessibility purposes! See here for a more detailed explanation and advice on how best to do this.)
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Keep 'em moist and cool - the back of the refrigerator is better than the freezer. The books I have don't have figures for cold stratification beyond 3 months but doing that can increase germination by up to 80 percent.
Don't want to gush technical stuff at you if you don't want or need it, especially in a meme thread, but I will gladly geek out and answer whatever I can for you
The deepest ones I've got experience with are about 14" deep, with a top of 2" square tapering to a 1.5" square at the bottom - theoretically, you could get away with growing in those for up to a full season but you'll have to worry about encircling roots and the trees may experience difficulty during transplanting if something isn't done to free them from that shape. Wider grow bags would definitely give you a buffer in that they'll have more room for the lateral roots, but many of the ones I've tried wick moisture from the substrate so you may need to devote additional time to watering.
Something we've had good success with is the use of air prune boxes (apologies for the self plug but it's something to which I have quick access), which do limit the length of the taproots during the time in the box but substantially increase the amount of fibrous roots the trees will grow. Once transplanted, the taproots will resume normal growth behavior. Here's an introductory article about them from someone other than me writing for Mother Earth News. We grow a number of woody plants in air prune boxes for a full growing season, at which point we remove them and either plant or ship them during the fall and early winter. I can't recommend them enough, but it's important that you choose the method that will work best for your circumstances, time, and means.