Guide to planting small trees and shrubs

Interested in adding a small tree or shrub to your garden? You can't go wrong with these insights from Spring Hill Nursery's gardening expert! You'll find useful tips on selecting the right planting site, amending the soil, planting and after care in this video.

Well, hi there, Scott with Spring Hill Nurseries, with step-by-step gardening and today, I'm going to show you how to plant a shrub or a small tree. It's a beautiful fall day here at the nursery which is a perfect time for planting shrubs and trees. The cool weather is great because your new plants are not going to get burned out by the summer heat. Also, getting ready for the winter, your plant has started putting all its energy into the roots and in the spring time, it is going to be really doing great. Now I've already dug my hole but when you dig your hole, you want it to be about two to three times the width of the root ball and I've got this arborvitae here, so I've already dug my hole and I haven't made my hole too deep. And that's a key for a shrub like this and I'll tell you why in just one minute. Let's get our tree out, okay, out it in the hole, and as you see here, it is a little bit above the soil line. Now that's good. We're going to get our garden soil in here, okay? I've got good soil amended with organic matter. You should always think about that when planting, you want to have the best soil you can. There's nothing better than putting organic amendments into your soil. Okay, now what I've done, because the top of the root ball is a little bit above the soil line, I've made just a little mountain here, just a little bit. And what that's going to do is that's going to help the water drain off when you water your plant in coz you don't want to drown it out. And you just fill in the hole and then, we're going to give it a good watering, okay? And we'll do it all the way around and then give it a good mulching. And that will help protect it through the winter. And that's it. Do it in the fall time, the hole, two to three times the width of the root ball and nearly as deep as it was in the pot. Then taper up your dirt a little bit so you get good drainage. Mulch it and take good care of it in the spring. You'll have a beautiful shrub like this arborvitae here. For step-by-step gardening, I'm Scott.