> Next: Spacing Plantings
Healthy Trees and Shrubs
Follow our simple tips to choose the healthiest trees and shrubs available for planting in your home’s landscape. Reject any with easily recognized or hidden problems.
Finding Healthy Trees and Shrubs
When the time comes to acquire new trees and shrubs, you’ll have many selections and quality grades from which to choose.
Choices include plants at a local nursery or garden center and selections on the Internet from a grower’s catalog. Universities and plant groups also hold springtime sales. We always recommend that you personally see the stock you’ll plant, if possible.
Quality starts with good care. If you shop locally, take a look around. Are the aisles clean and merchandise neatly displayed? Do the plants look healthy overall? Is the staff knowledgeable? Generally, retailers that pays attention to these details are good bets to also stock healthy plants.
For trees, options include balled-and-burlapped plants, bare-root plants, and those grown in containers. All of these options provide good, healthy trees and shrubs.
Most shrubs are available in nursery-grower containers. In early spring, avoid any carryover stock still in the store from the prior season. Such plants may be root-bound, shop-worn, or permanently stunted.
During the growing season, visually inspect each plant. Start by looking at the leaves or foliage.
Healthy plants have good color, without any discoloration. Gently flex the twigs: healthy twigs have some spring to them and should bend, never snap. Avoid those with obvious damage or dead spots.
Next examine the plant’s root system. With nursery or garden center staff’s permission, place the tree or shrub on its side and carefully its rootball partway out of the container.
Some roots, whitish in color, should be visible on the outside of the rootball. If the roots are dark brown, badly tangled, or encircling the pot, look for a healthier plant.
Avoid the urge to create an instant landscape. Resist your temptation to choose the largest plant in the largest container or box.
Research shows that the smaller a tree or shrub is planted, the better it will adapt and the healthier it will be.
Young plants also are more economical. They’re easier to transport and carry to your planting site. Choose trees and shrubs in 1-gallon (3.8-l) or 5-gallon (18.9-l) containers.
Plant Hardiness
The United States Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) studied long-term climate data to divide North America into 11 plant hardiness zones. GrownByYou.com has interpreted similar climate data from around the world to draw maps of some other world locations [see Plant Hardiness Around the World].
Follow these zone recommendations by choosing trees and shrubs rated numerically for adaptation to your zone—for example, zones 4–7. Plant hardiness zones are usually listed on plant tags, labels or other plant references For convenience, GrownByYou.com includes the zone recommendations in all of our tree and shrub listings.