A tree either establishes in the ground it is put in or it is replaced in three years, and most of what decides that happens on the day it goes in.
the months the stock is lifted and sold dormant
the RHS range for planting a tree
easier to care for planted in autumn or winter
and only top-heavy stock is staked at all
this ground does not hold what you give it
no felling, climbing or chainsaw work
Tree planting is choosing a tree the ground will actually keep, then getting it in properly: a pit no deeper than the roots and three times as wide, the root flare left level with the surface, a stake only where the stock needs one, mulch held clear of the bark, and water through the first summers whilst the roots find their way out into the soil.
The mechanism
A bare-root tree is lifted with no soil around its roots. Planted while dormant it makes root growth before the canopy starts demanding water in spring. Planted in leaf, what the crown transpires is more than a damaged root system can supply, and the tree spends its first year in deficit.
Why the winter stock
Bare-root trees and hedging are only available in winter and early spring, while dormant, and are generally cheaper than the same plant in a container. So the months that suit the tree are the months the stock costs least, which is a rare alignment and worth waiting for.
The part nobody sees
The hole goes no deeper than the roots and at least three times the width of them, with compacted sides forked open so the roots are not planting into a pot of their own. The root flare stays level with the surface, and mulch keeps a clear collar around the stem so the bark does not rot.
Nothing goes into frozen or waterlogged ground, and that is a condition rather than a date. The low-lying parishes around Rufford, Banks and Mere Brow sit on a landscape that is kept drained rather than draining by gravity, so a midwinter planting date is set by the state of the ground on the morning, not by the diary.
Three genuinely different growing mediums sit inside a fifteen-minute drive of Ormskirk. The Shirdley Hill sand under the town and Aughton is free-draining and very acid where it has never been cultivated, which suits beech, hornbeam, holly and Scots pine and starves anything wanting a limey, moisture-retentive loam. The Tarleton and Hesketh Bank peat compacts wet and hardens dry. On the Skelmersdale and newer estates it is made ground, and a pan at spade depth decides more than the species does.
It sits alongside the rest of our garden services in Ormskirk, and is often booked with turf laying. The ground changes across the patch — see Ormskirk.
Which of the local soils you are actually on, where the tree sits relative to the boundary, the building and its drains, and what it becomes at full size rather than at nursery size.
The species follows the soil and the position, not the label. We also say whether bare root in season or container now is the better buy for what you want.
Before anything is ordered
We confirm with the relevant council whether the site sits in a conservation area or carries existing protected trees. We state what the position is and leave the determination to them.
A pit no deeper than the roots and at least three times their width, sides forked open where they are compacted, organic matter into the backfill, and the root flare left level with the surface.
Most of a morning per tree
A stake only where the stock is top-heavy enough to need one, mulch with a clear collar around the stem, a thorough watering in, and a written watering plan for the first two summers.
What moves the price
Stock size, and whether it is bare root or container grown. Access, both for getting the tree in and for getting the spoil out. The ground itself, because a pit in drained mossland peat is not a pit in Ormskirk sand. And whether anything leaves site. We price it after we have seen the position, and the written quote is the one that counts.
The first summers
The sandy soils around Ormskirk are free-draining with low nutrient retention, so they do not hold what you give them. A tree here wants organic matter worked into the backfill and real watering through its first summers, not a hose on the day and a hope after that.
Mossland ground
The Tarleton, Hesketh Bank, Banks and Mere Brow peat compacts when it is worked wet and hardens as it dries, and peat allowed to over-dry can go drummy and refuse to take water back at all. Barrowing a tree across it in a wet February leaves ruts that do not recover.
Wind
Salt-laden wind off the Sefton dunes scorches new growth on the seaward side. The pine plantations at Formby were put in by the estate landowners to hold the dunes down, which is the clearest statement of the local problem there is. Bare ground left open here in spring moves, so it gets mulched or planted straight away.
The long view
The wrong species too close to a boundary becomes the neighbour's problem in a decade, and a line of evergreens over two metres falls inside a statutory complaint regime. A tree can also become protected in time, by a Tree Preservation Order or by sitting in a conservation area. We check the address with West Lancashire Borough Council, or with Sefton for Maghull and Southport, before we quote.
This is the general position, not a decision about your property. We confirm it with the authority named above before we quote.
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