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Rose Parade may be history, but it's still time for planting roses--barely

By Tony Tomeo

The Tournament of Roses Parade is only the beginning. With the help of many other flowers, roses of all colors come out to perform and remind us of their splendor, even though they are several months out of season. Then, as if coincidentally, bare-root roses suddenly become available in nurseries and garden centers. The pictures on their packaging or labels are hard to resist, even though the defoliated, dormant stems are not much to look at. Once the roses have secured their positions in our gardens, bare root fruit trees, shade trees and cane berries are sure to follow.

There are a few advantages to planting dormant plants bare root. It is obviously less expensive. Bare-root plants typically cost not much more than half of what they would cost canned during the summer. Bare-root plants are also much easier to get from the nursery to the garden. Even bagged in moist sawdust, they weigh only a few pounds and are not nearly as cumbersome as canned plants.

Once in the garden, bare-root plants become established sooner than canned plants because they root directly into the garden soil and are never root bound. Canned plants sometimes need to recover from confinement if their roots have been crowded. They may also be a bit hesitant to extend roots out of the rich soil that they have been growing in, and into unfamiliar garden soil.

The best bare-root plants have firm, turgid (well-hydrated) stems and plump buds. (Roses are often coated with wax to preserve turgidity.) Slight wrinkling of bark indicates dehydration. Plants that have already bloomed or leafed out are no longer dormant and very likely unhappy and distressed about waking up in transition.

Bare-root plants should be planted as soon as practical. The planting hole needs to be only as wide as the roots can be spread. The roots can either be spread flat on the bottom of a shallow planting hole, or spread out at about 45 degrees below horizontal over a cone of soil formed at the bottom a hole. With either technique, graft unions should not be buried. (Most bare-root stock is grafted.) If planting must be delayed, the roots should be put into a bucket of water or temporarily buried in soft and moist soil or compost until planted. Once planted, roots should be watered to soak and settle the soil.

Bare-root fruit trees are only slightly pruned as they are dug, so that they arrive in the nurseries with superfluous branches. These branches function as packing material to cushion the trees during transportation, and offer more options when the trees are installed in the garden and pruned for the first time. All bare-root fruit trees require at least some pruning immediately after installation, some more than others. Broken and damaged stems should be the first to go.

The most popular fruit trees that are available bare root include apple, pear, persimmon and the various stone fruit (of the genus Prunus), such as almond, apricot, cherry, nectarine, peach, plum and prune. There are also a few hybrids among apricot and plum, such as aprium, plumcot and pluot. (Almonds are actually the seeds of a fruit that resembles the others.) Flowering crabapples, pears, plums, cherries and peaches that do not produce fruit, as well as quince, mulberries, walnuts, pecans and filberts, are rare, but are sometimes found in better-stocked nurseries. The various cane berries, grape, rose, artichoke, rhubarb and strawberry are also available bare root.

Tree of the Week:
Persimmon

Fall color of Japanese persimmon, Diospyros kaki, is as impressive as that of sweetgum, pistache and flowering pear. But wait, there's more! The foliage falls to reveal abundant, bright orange fruit that hangs around until about now, if not picked sooner. Because the fruit gets so soft when ripe, it is typically picked sooner than later but tastes best if it can ripen first, and be left until the first light frost. Large persimmon trees can get to 25 feet tall and wide, but are almost always smaller locally. The large, rounded leaves are about 6 inches long. Unlike other deciduous fruit trees, persimmon trees should not be pruned, but only trimmed as minimally as possible to shape and confine.

Horticulturist Tony Tomeo can be reached at lghorticulture@aol.com or 408.358.2574.