Kitchen Garden Forum

Any advice please on re-planting a young eating apple tree, which my neighbour is digging up and has offered to me. It’s about two years old and has fruited once.
I’ve dug the hole (18” x 18” x 24”d) so what’s the best “filling”? The following options come to mind:
1. Replace the earth I’ve dug out (plus fertiliser/rooting powder?)
2. Use brand new proprietary compost like Bowers (which one?)
3. Use other compost/soil I’ve got lying around – last year’s marrow heap, etc?
4. Special compost – ericaseous?
5. A mixture of any of the above
6. Any tips on preparing the hole (e.g. bare earth or new compost under the roots?) and what fertiliser, if any, to use, would be gratefully received.
Thanks

I have to shift a small Deyanne Du Comice pear tree 'cos it's in the shade an we aint getting the best. I intend to replace the earth removed and beef it up a bit with compost and chicken pooh pellets. Hope that helps. Cheers, Tony.

Most sites selling fruit trees include some planting advice. I buy my trees from Paul Jasper and these are his notes:
"Dig a generous sized hole and fork over the hard soil at the bottom of the hole thoroughly to help prevent waterlogging. Most trees are easy to establish but dislike waterlogged soils. Cherry and Sorbus are the least tolerant of this. Site a tree stake if necessary. Because your trees are bare-rooted it is possible to position your stake vertically in the planting hole. This gives better support than the more recent method of positioning the stake a distance from the tree and driving it in at 45 degrees. This method evolved to accommodate container plants where the roots are hidden by the potted compost and damage to the roots would result from a closer, vertically driven stake. If rabbits and hares are prevalent you must use spiral tree guards to prevent damage.
Add a handful of general fertilizer and a shovel of planting compost and mix these with the excavated soil. Replace the excavated soil mixture and take special care to see that the 'grafting point' (union), or 'kink' is above ground level with two or three inches to spare. If the union is buried the special rootstock will lose its control over both cropping and vigour of the tree. This is particularly important with fruit trees.

Water your new tree thoroughly (one bucket of water) and repeat weekly during the first growing season during dry spells if you're able to. If any 'suckers' appear remove them from below the grafting point. Suckers are far less of a problem with the new range of rootstocks we use today."

Replanting a two year old may be like a bare root or a container depending how the root ball comes up. If you can arrange the tree round it properly I'd go with the vertical stake. The old idea of digging in manure or compost seems to be out of favour, I've always used Blood/Fish/Bone as the general fertiliser. It doesn't say that there but square holes are supposed to be better than round as new roots break out of them better instead of going round and round.

Thanks Geoff and Tony, that's great. My hole is square!
John N

Good advice from the others, one advantage you could add is some rootgrow in the planting hole, this adds beneficial fungi to the roots, and they act in symbiosis with the trees roots collecting and supplying nutrients and moisture from a much deeper and wider area in exchange for sugars the tree gets from the sun.

My only addition to the excellent advice already given is the prune out any damaged roots back to sound wood that may have occured in the digging out process. It is very difficult to dig out a tree without some form of root damage occurring.
JB.

The advice given here has been excellent. I would like to add to it that it's important that the soil replaced in the hole is as similar to the surrounding soil as possible. That way, the tree's roots are more inclined to explore beyond the planting hole, giving better anchorage and better prospects for the tree in the long run. You also need to be careful not to dig a pond. What I mean by that is that I've seen trees die because they have ended up sitting in a puddle created by the planting hole. This is only of concern where the soil is particularly heavy, in which case it is important to break up the subsoil thoroughly. If in doubt, dig the hole and leave it open for a few days to see if it drains.
Nature's Babe recommends mycorrhizal fungi, and so do I, in favour of adding manure or fertiliser which can encourage too much leafy growth in the first year beyond that which the roots can usefully support. In the second year, when the tree is up and running, do your feeding then.

I moved 7 apple trees 3 years ago, not without some difficulty as some were rather deeply embedded. However, by ensuring that they were replanted immediately everything worked well despite being a bit rough and ready with holes. This year has seen some reasonable crops from them. Also replanted a Bardsey last year - hasn't looked too happy about it, but hoping it will do better next year. A two year old tree should be fine though it may not fruit much next year.

With regards to fertilizers when replanting. I consider Chicken manure to be too strong for the purpose and suggest that having dug the hole to the correct depth and diameter it is best to relieve the bottom of the hole with a fork to complete depth of fork and as you do that scatter some bone meal and if possible horn and hoof and work these into the soil. Both of these are slow acting, especially the horn and hoof, and these will not overdo the strength of fertilizer but will feed your tree roots for at least five years.
JB.