Digging:

The intense care of your bare root shade trees begins at harvest. Each tree is quickly deposed of soil and put onto pallets to swiftly make their way to the protection of our grading and packing shed. It is our goal and yours to minimize drying and desiccation of the root system in every step. 

Grading:

We then meticulously grade each tree using and exceeding the American Nursery & Landscape Associations grades and standards. We require a 6’ branched tree to be 3/4 – 1” in caliper and must be substantially and uniformly branched in the 4-6’ region. Upon being bundled, trees are stored in sawdust/chip decks that are well drained to prevent winter root-rot. Depending on shipping dates the bare root is stored in our cold storage building. 

Shipping/Receiving:

As your bare root trees are loaded, each pallet is kept out of the wind and kept moist until just before loading. We recommend the same careful intentions on the receiving end. We have communicated with many growers who have great survivability when unloading our bare root in climate controlled structures to prevent wind and cold desiccation of the root system. They also do as we do and store trees in a well drained mulch bed to maintain root moisture until planting time. The tree tops should be kept dry to reduce disease, and cool to maintain dormancy. 

Planting:

Even in the last step precautions must be made to protect each essential root until our bare root tree is planted in the warm protective earth. We use and promote the investment in a polymer product and the labor time to dip or spray immediately after pulling trees from the mulch bed.  These small investments will not only perform wonders in protecting each tree during transportation to planting, but in utilizing each drop of moisture during the critical establishing phase.