TREE PLANTING TIPS

Plant the Future with a Tree A single tree can do wonders for your home and garden. It can provide colorful fall leaves, flowers, fruit or nuts and raise your real estate value. it can be an environmentally wise summer air conditioner for your home. A tree is a marvelous creation! Trees also help process carbon dioxide and turn it back into oxygen. This is a very important reason to plant trees in our yards, parks and cities. Consider giving trees as anniversary presents, to commemorate important dates in the lives of friends and families or give one or more as a house-warming present. Planting trees just makes a lot of sense. And fall is the best time for planting trees...so join in the future!

Several trees to consider for your garden for spectacular fall color are:

• Chinese Tallow Tree: Sapium sebiferum one of tghe benefits of this tree is the brilliant autumn foliage it provides. Choose from flaming red, bright yellow, purples and oranges. It is hardy to 10-15 degrees.
• Chinese Pistache: Pistacia chinensis. Pistache trees are known for their show-stopping autumn foliage. They require no summer watering once tey are established and do best with deep infrequent watering.
• Sweet Gum: Liquidamber A popular street tree with a cone shaped growth habit. Spreading with age, it provides brilliant fall foliage. Leaves color best when trees are in full sun and well draining soil. Fall color is less brilliant in milder climates.

How to Successfully Plant a Tree

These tips are provided by the California Association of Nurseries and Carden Centers, and California ReLEAF

1. Dig the planting hole two times wider than the container or root ball of the tree. Make vertical sides to the hole and roughen them so the roots can penetrate.
2. Remove the container just before the tree is put into the hole. Move the tree by the root ball rather than the trunk. Minimize the time the roots are exposed to air. Roots circling around the outside of the rootball should be cut vertically in five places around the circumserence. Cut off matted roots fromt he bottom of the root ball.
3. Set the root ball on undisturbed soil. Adjust the best side of the tree to face the direction you want. Make sure th top surface of the root ball is one inch higher than the natural soil grade. lay a stick or shovel handle across the hole to see if the root ball is high or low.
4. Fill the hole in and around the root ball with the soil you removed from the hole in Step One. If the soil is filled with rocks, rake out the larger ones. Break up any clods and mis them with good topsoil. Firm the soil around the tree's root ball until the hole is two-thirds full.
5. Fill the remaining space with water. Finish filling the hole with soil, but do not tamp. No fill soil shoud be put on top of the root ball.
6. Mound what soil is left into a six-inch high berm around the edge of the planting hole. Fill the basin around the tree with waer to wet and settle the soil.
7. Place a three-inch layer mulch (bark or organic compost) around the tree. mulch helps control weeds and retains water in the soil. Keep lawns 18 inches away from the trunk.
8. Remove the stake that came with the tree. Restake your tree only if the tree cannot support itself. use two stakes and palce them 12 inches away from the trunk on either side to support the tree against the wind. Use soft flexible garden ties to secure the tree to the stakes.

Select trees that fit your local region. Native trees can be found in the growing number of native plant nurseries scattered across the state. When you plant native trees, you also support the native wildlife such as birds, butterflies, moths, squirrels, and other critters and insects that depend on trees for food, shelter and nesting habitat.