Days 71 to 73 of 365 Days Of Low Carbon Living: when I explain how I buy and plant a bare-rooted currant bush to provide fruit in summer.

A few posts ago I wrote about the bounty that you can get from home-grown fruit and what I have done to get it.

I mentioned that:

In cool climates like Canberra, winter is the cheapest time to buy deciduous fruit trees like plums from local nurseries (if you haven’t already ordered them in advance) and the best time to plant them.  At the end of winter, the choice of plants is likely to be limited yet you can also pick up some bargains if you’re not fussy about choice.

It is the end of winter where I live so the last of the bare-rooted plants are being sold and/or planted. There is some variation between nurseries as to when they ‘pot up’ (plant in pots) any bare-rooted stock they still have. This variation in timing largely depends on their stock and location. The aim is to get the plants planted before they ‘wake up’ (which can be seen as buds swelling and then leaves opening). And, of course, plants in soil and pots generally cost more than those without.

Last summer some of my currant bushes died.

Time to get new bare-rooted currant bushes

To get new ones at the cheapest prices, I wanted to buy them bare rooted.

So, a few days ago I went to a local nursery to see if there were any left.

This nursery has a lot of bare-rooted trees, bushes and canes. They used to keep them the traditional way: in beds of sand.  However, now they are keeping each variety in a very large tub:

What a bare-rooted currant bush looks like

Several bare-rooted plants are put into each tub or holding bed and covered loosely with sand, saw-dust or (in this case) potting mix and kept damp.

Because they don’t have soil around their roots, the plants can be kept close together.  (The also helps reduce the price.)

You (or the nursery person) select which plants you want and then gently pull and work them out of the holding mix. This needs to be done carefully, so as not to damage any of the roots or branches.  If anything is damaged, it need to be trimmed neatly to avoid infection.

I find the best way to take the plants home is with the roots in a plastic bag, tied around the trunk or stem. The stops the roots drying out during the trip home and collects any sand or mulch on the roots. Where transport will take days, the roots need to be kept moist with mulch or damp newspaper.

I have also discovered the hard way that large bags are best because you never know how big the root system will be. Either at the nursery or at home, the top of the plant will usually need pruning to make it the same size as the roots.

Here’s what one of my currant bushes looks like, just after taking it out of the plastic bag and sitting on one of my mulch paths:

Here you can see the bare roots more clearly:

Planting my bare-rooted currant bush: digging the hole

Buying a new plant is exciting and fun.

Planting it can be too – although it can take more time and effort.

And, of course, it’s dirty. I am not like so many of the presenters on gardening shows on TV – I get dirty when I am near soil or potting mix.

So I find it’s a good idea to wear clothes and shoes that I don’t mind getting dirty while I am planting. Gloves are a good idea too.

It started raining (finally!) as I was paying for my new currant bushes, so I was not able to plant them on the day I bought them.

Not to worry – I would be able to plant them the next day.

I was looking forward to getting 6 of my plants set out in quick succession. The soil in the established garden beds would be lovely and moist after a decent fall of steady rain and easy to dig.

Well, that was the theory.

The first spadefuls of topsoil showed that – unlike most rain in recent years – quite a lot of rain had gone into the soil. I celebrated inside!

However, after about 10cm the soil was bone-dry. The soil was so dry that, about 25cm into my hole, it was behaving like sand. It was difficult to pick up and the sides of the hole and the pile of removed soil kept collapsing. I felt sad that the soil was so dry – and to such a depth. It was bone dry all the way down to the rock-hard subsoil. My local confirmation of the drying soils that are one of the consequences of damage to our climate. (Warmer temperatures mean more evaporation…and longer between rain events that, when they come, come in such amounts that most runs off instead of soaking into the soil.)

Luckily, my base soil is clay and not sand.

So…onto the remedy for dry clay and loam soils: wetting.

I filled the hole with water…

…so the soil turned to mud and I could it out.

Here’s a close-up of some of the wet soil (top right half of the picture) on top of dry soil (bottom left half of picture) removed from the hole:

I had to do several rounds of wetting and removing the soil from the hole. Needless to say, the hole-digging process took much longer than I had planned.

Planting my bare-rooted currant bush: putting the plant into the hole

Actually putting a new plant into the soil is the fun part – usually.

One of the most important things is ensuring that the hole is big enough.

The rule of thumb is that the hole should be twice as wide as the roots and at least the same depth as the roots.

This can be a challenge if the soil is very hard, sandy or otherwise collapsing into the hole, or if you are planting among other established plants. In my case I had all of these:

• very dry soil collapsing into the hole
• thick roots from adjacent peach trees
• rock-hard subsoil (although this was at a depth just greater than the depth of the roots)

Square sides encourage the roots to grow downward. Rough edges on the hole help the roots get a good hold in the soil. (Smooth round sides can result in roots growing round and round, much like a pot-bound plant.)

Eventually I was able to make the hole big enough for my new currant bush.

So in it went.

I carefully spread out the roots so that they radiated out from the trunk:

Planting my bare-rooted currant bush: filling in the hole

The next step was to fill in the hole.

It’s hard to tell from the pictures above, but having the roots flat on the bottom of the hole mean that the trunk of the bush starts below the top of the hole instead of level with it. The roots were also resting on hard top soil so they would find it hard to grown downward.

To remedy this situation I wanted to raise the trunk.

However, I wanted to ensure that the roots stayed spread out. They would need to be forming a cone-shape.

Most people achieve this by making a mound in the bottom of the hole and then placing the roots around it.  However, this was difficult because of the depth of the hole (and the dryness of most of the soil) so here’s what I did:

• I carefully added some of the dry topsoil over the roots, particularly around the edges of the hole. This held down the outer edges of the roots, keeping them spread out.
• I then held the trunk and gently shook it to work the loose soil in between and under the roots. This was why I used dry soil. The wet soil would have stayed in lumps and would probably have not have worked its way into intimate contact with the roots, either initially or after watering in.

Most plants need a bit of nurturing until they become established.

Unfortunately, my soil is very dry and our rain is very erratic. (This is one of the features of global warming.) This means that I need to take extra care to give my new plant the best possible start.

So I alternated dry soil and filling the hole with water. The aim of this was two-fold:

1. Ensure that all the roots are in contact with soil.
2. Ensure that all the roots and the soil around them are moist  and are likely to stay that way for quite a while.

Here is the bush with most of the roots covered and the hole filled in with soil, after wetting:

Planting my bare-rooted currant bush: providing on-going nurturing during establishment

Once the hole was all filled in, I created a small trench in the surface of the soil around the plant.

What I want is to ensure that, when I water it (or it rains), the water lingers in a moat. It canthen soak into the soil where the new roots will be growing. The last thing I want is for any water to run off and not reach the roots.

Here’s how it works.

First comes the water…

…and then the water is held in the moat before soaking into the soil.

Finally, some mulch to reduce evaporation, suppress weeds and add nutrients to the soil.

I was happy with the result. However, my particular situation meant a longer, more complicated process than I had planned. Because of prior commitments, this meant that I took 2 days to get all my planting done.

Challenge

If you have a garden, courtyard or balcony, plant at least one plant for fruit.

• The principles are the same for potted plants as for bare-rooted and potted plants, and for growing plants pots as growing them in the ground. It’s just a bit simpler using potted plants or growing plants in pots.
• Choose a fruit you like to eat.
• Seek advice from a local nursery, garden or permaculture club, books or online. They can advise which plants and varieties will be good choices for your situation. They can also give more details for how to grow your plants.

Join me!

Any change or challenge is easier if you have company along the way.

So let’s embark on this journey together.

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A problem shared is a problem halved. We’re all affected by the changes to our world so we need to be all in on the action!

Till next time…