buying container-grown trees from garden centres

blowin · buying container-grown trees from garden centres

Fruit trees are the most obvious example of where you will find this rip-off which sadly seems to be quite common in garden centres .
You will notice that their bare-rooted stock is considerably cheaper than similar trees which are in containers ( up to about the size of a bucket ) . The bare-rooted also has a limited planting season . What some cowboys do is to simply cut off the roots of a field-grown tree , shove it in a flowerpot with a bit of compost and put it on sale with a high price ticket . So you have now got a damaged plant which you are probably going to plant in the wrong season ( because it isn't so critical for pot-grown ones ) . Are you really going to take it back when you have just dug the hole to plant it in ? You should pull the tree out of the pot while you are still at the garden centre . If it has a compact rootball it probably has been grown on in containers . If the roots radiate outwards and have had their ends cut off it probably hasn't ! Evil or Very Mad

It might be an idea to tell the staff what you are about to do but you will see that it is common practice on tv gardening progs .
Oh , and check for Vine Weavil at the same time Wink

. ( I thought I'd save Wayland the trouble of adding that ! Sorry , mate , couldn't resist ! Wink

Graney

Not quite sure what your beef is Blowin.

Almost all container trees are stock that has been lifted from the ground when it's one or two years old and potted.

Not only can you see when you buy that it's alive and hopefully growing well - otherwise don't buy it - and if it's growing well it will also have grown new roots into the compost. And with that cushion of compost round the new roots, it means you can plant throughout the growing season and you're not limited to trying to stick trees into waterlogged cold soil in the winter months.

For those advantages you pay a bit more. Doesn't seem too much of a bad deal to me.

blowin

I have no objection if the plants have been given time to establish themselves in the pots , as you describe . I even buy them occasionally !
I was prompted to offer that word of caution because the two trees I had just brought home can't have been in the pots for any length of time before they were put on sale . Very loose compost , no sign of the roots conforming to or filling the pot . They took a long while to recover from planting-out . I am not an expert but do have a bit of experience with this sort of thing . This was not what you'd expect for 30 euro a pot !
This may not be a very common practice but it seems worth checking before you buy because it is such a disappointment to discover it when you get home .

Graney

Ah ... now I understand the gripe. Would agree that the tree ought to have at least a few month's in the pot and have time to develop a reasonable root system before it's offered for sale.

I just thought you might be putting others off buying trees in pots just because they were lifted from the field, when in practice that's the norm.

My complaint would be that a lot of the bareroot trees I've bought over the last couple of years have not been lifted carefully enough and all you get are a few badly damaged stumpy roots and all the smaller roots have been torn off. It's bound to make them much harder to establish.