At my family’s farm, it originally had a huge orchard. Some of those trees still exist and provide an abundance to fruit every season from the transparent apples for applesauce to the fall September apples for pies, cakes, and just an everyday snack. My husband’s family loves their apples too. Every fall they gather up tons of apples to make not only homemade applesauce but also fresh apple cider. With our own property, one of the first things to add for long-term was our apple trees. For the early spring planting season, we prefer to plant bare root apple trees, which is a dormant tree with no foliage with no soil or medium surrounding its roots.
Where to Buy Apple Trees
Big Box Store and their garden centers usually sell a variety of trees- fruiting, flowering, and shade. I find though that they don’t offer the most in variety of each. I’m not that much of a fan of Red Delicious apples, so I’m not going to be seeking out those trees.
Local garden centers offer much more varieties. For me though, I like to order my trees from Stark Brothers. They offer so much information on planting their products, as well as having high standards as a company. It is easy to order online, and often times offers sales, coupon codes, or free shipping offers.
In 2022, I bought four apple trees from them including, Franklin Cider, Honeycrisp, Cortland, and a Golden Delicious. These all came in small pots with soil surrounding the roots. The pots can be different sizes, but the larger the size, the more it will cost. Stark Brothers offer filters and resources to figure out if a tree variety is right for your growing area. All these varieties fit into my zone 5 gardening.
In 2023, I bought an additional four bare root apple trees to make up the rest of the small apple orchard, coming for a spring planting. These include two Transparent apple trees, Empire, and September Wonder Fuji.
Upon Arrival of Bare Roots
Ideally plant the same day. Even though these are to be shipped during the season that they need planted, that doesn’t mean the weather will be perfect conditions on the day that they arrive. For us, it began to snow for a few days once they arrived. Clearly we were not able to plant them the day they arrived.
Stark brothers provide instructions for every step, including what to do if the bare root apple trees cannot be planted the day it was shipped.
https://www.starkbros.com/growing-guide/article/how-to-plant-a-bare-root-tree
Once bare root apple trees arrive, make sure that their roots are still moist. They should have moist scraps of paper around the roots to keep them moist during transportation. During the days waiting for planting, make sure this paper stays moist, as well as the roots. We didn’t have any problems with it staying moist for a few days, but we are in a humid climate in Appalachian Mountains.
Keep the bare root trees in the box in a cooler climate with darkness. This will keep it in its baron stage. We kept ours in our woodshop in our basement. Our grow lights were in the same room, but on opposites sides. The box would also add a layer of darkness for the bare roots. We also kept our pellet stove off- for the most part- while the bare roots were in this room.
Spacing the Trees
Depending on size of tree you order, that will impact how far away to plant your trees. Semi-dwarf trees need 12’ – 15’ of space. I spaced my trees in 2022 15’ apart, so I continues this in 2023 with the new trees.
Use a landscape tape measure to measure 15’ from the previous trees. I then eye-balled lining the new tree up with the two previous. To mark where to plant them for my husband to know, I used a post digger to remove the sod. Then, I placed scraps of wood on top of each sod marking to make it easy for him to see.
Few Hours Before Planting
Planting took a tag team effort. I work days and my husband works second shift. With sunny weather with no rain or snow coming, we decided to plant the trees. During the morning hours, he dug the four holes for the four new trees. The holes were dug about 2’ deep and 1.5’ to 2’ wide.
He also prepped the trees by soaking the roots in a bucket of water. This needs to be done for at least an hour, but no more than 24 hours.
My husband also brought a load of compost over in the tractor bucket to have ready for planting, as well as a few bags of mulch.
Adding Soil Amendments
Soil amendments don’t need to be added. Some resources say to add soil amendments, while others are entirely against it. Adding soil amendments add nutrients. Not adding soil amendment to the hole creates a native environment for the roots to start. The roots will spread throughout the soil versus staying into the hole with the great nutritional amendments.
For adding soil amendments, I find the best plan to follow is from the video “How to Plant Bare Root Fruit Trees With Ease” from MI Gardener where he uses a recipe of 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 native soil. What I liked about his video was how he showed the structure of his soil, being mostly clay. I can relate, so I think it is fine to add amendments to loosen that soil.
Another great resource for learning about applying soil amendments for bare root trees is from Grow Veg called “Planting Bare-Rooted Fruit Trees”. Here, it says to combine the compost to the native soil so that a layer of fresh compost does not block the growth of the tree’s roots into the native soil outside of the hole.
https://www.growveg.com/guides/planting-barerooted-fruit-trees/
Planting the Bare Root Apple Tree
Spread out the roots. Place the bare root apple tree into the hole. The graft, which a little knob in the stem near the bottom where the truck of the tree was attached to a different root system, should be 2” – 3” above the soil line. So eye-ball where that would be and hold the bare root there. Add the soil back into the hole, still making sure the graft is above the soil line by a few inches.
Mulching the Apple Tree
For the first layer of mulch, I lay down newspapers. This paper mulch prevents weeds or grasses from poking up through the mulch layer. To hold the newspaper down, place some nearby rocks onto the newspapers, or add a small layer of compost or mulch to keep the newspapers from blowing before adding the rest of the mulch.
Stark Brothers also sells a landscape fabric ring to place around the tree. That would work as well, but it would need budgeted for.
I add more newspapers, creating a wider space to be mulched. To reduce the newspaper from blowing away while laying more down, I found it works best to place these second and third round of newspapers underneath the first layer, as well as spreading some of the small amount of compost or mulch onto these new layers.
Add the mulch. The biggest thing to do here is to make sure none of the mulch touches the new tree. Mulch should be placed more like a donut with a hole in the center. Cover all the newspapers with the mulch. If you have some newspapers showing in the center near the tree- do not bother covering it. The goal is to make sure the newspaper is not going to be blowing away.
My New Addition of My Orchard
The four-year goal was to add four trees per year into an orchard on a hillier section of the yard. It is not steep where the trees are planted, but it drops down rather steeply after that. It was a spot that I did not want to plant a garden to rototill every year.
Half of our orchard is planted. At first it seemed like having the planting process go for four years was going to take forever. Why not just plant everything that first year? Buying from Stark brothers, each bare root tree is about $50. Planting an orchard is such a large investment that spreading it out across a few years eases that cost. Instead of spending $800 the first year, it is about $200 per year, which is so much more manageable.
When being patient with funds, it also provides more time to gain skills in planting, pruning, caring, and harvesting fruit.
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