Planting trees and shrubs

Outcomes

Students will gain an understanding of how to plant seedlings without damaging roots and other delicate plant parts.

Background Information

There are a few simple tricks to planting seedlings correctly. - Autumn and Winter are the best times to plant as rains is reliable and plants have time to establish a root system before summer hits. - Use buckets to water the plants (using a hose can damage plants in the ground). - Use hand trowels or similar implements to dig holes so that plants can be put in the ground. - Before starting out, use the Wildscape plan to layout plants over your planting site. Each square on your Wildscape plant equals one square metre. - Students will need to be shown how to remove plants from their seedling tube. - Discuss with students where they need to start and how they can avoid stepping on plants or tubes.

Materials

Plants, Wildscape plan, hand trowels, buckets, gardening gloves if possible (otherwise hads need to be washed thoroughly after planting),

Let's begin

- Scrape an area of mulch forming a large hollow and exposing an area of the ground the size of a saucer. Make sure other plants are not being stepped on or squashed. - Dig a hole that is a little deeper than the seedling tube. Don't mix the soil with the mulch. - Squeeze the tube to loosen the soil. Turn the pot upside down and carefully extract the plant. - Some roots may need to be gently teased out if they are tightly bound in circles. - Place the plant vertically in the hole. - Gently pack the soil around the plant. Avoid pushing mulch into the hole. - Move some of the mulch back but leave a hollow like a crater around the plant to collect water. - Place the empty tube upside down next to the plant so that others know not to step on the plant. - Gently pour half a bucket of water into the crater around around the plant. - Make some labels for plants using strips cut from polystyrene meat/vege trays or plastic milk containers. Use a waterproof marker to mark the date of planting and the plant names. - Water your plants twice a week for the first few weeks if the weather is dry

links

The Gould League: http://www.gould.edu.au