As the end of March approaches, it is time to bring a close to our lifting season. Being a field grown tree nursery, we grow all our trees in the ground and dig them up during the winter months when they are dormant. This normally starts in October, however, the timeline can vary as some trees take longer to shed their leaves, necessitating patience as we await optimal conditions for the trees to shut down for winter. It is important to deal with root balled trees in a careful manner. The team work together, knowing instinctively which trees are prime for lifting and which to leave. Philip remarks:
“It is while they are sleeping we dig them up, and then they wake up in their new home when spring comes.”
The Spring clock
As spring leaps into action and begins to repaint the landscape with bursts of greens and yellow, the trees begin to awaken and display their beautiful leaves. Some trees come out in leaf quite early, like Pyrus calleryana ‘Chanticleer’ and are soon followed by Malus ‘Evereste’. With each passing week in March, the tension mounts as more trees awaken, prompting us to swiftly remove them from our availability list.
As the weeks go by in March it is literally a rush against the spring clock!
Some trees are fine to be coming in leaf whilst already out of the ground, which seems to be happening earlier than usual this year due to the very mild wet winter we’ve experienced so far. Obviously we try and get the trees to our customers as soon as possible, but again the wet weather has put a lot of landscaping jobs on hold which means we can’t deliver the trees if our customers are not ready to plant.
This year nature had other plans, being an unseasonably mild winter, and leaf growth seems to be ahead of schedule. This has forced a halt to much of our lifting schedule which in turn has caused many landscaping jobs to come to a standstill. Timing is everything, and the root balled trees are no exception, calling the shots and indicating in their own way, when they are ready to be moved and re-homed. Wherever they end up it is our job to make sure that they are well looked after until they arrive at their forever home.
More information about planting root balled trees is available here. Find out about our tree stock
