Do trees need compost when planting in a field?

hi, i'm planted a small copse of 3 types of tree, rowan, cherry & birch. they'll be going into a school playing field - do they need compost or is the field soil sufficient? i've got bone meal food and mulch for the surface... Also, do they need staking? have read 2 different & contradicting advice re stakes. they're 1 shoot, 2 foot tall maximum. we'll corden off the area of the field, although kids dont use it till summer, so should have 1 month. any advice - thank you

 

Bone meal only works if the soil has a ph of 7 or less ...
http://cmg.colostate.edu/gardennotes/234.pdf

snip:
recent CSU research has shown that phosphorus from bone meal is only available to plants in soils that
have a pH below 7.0.


you are better off digging a decent sized hole, then adding compost mixed with topsoil from the hole ... use 1/3 compost and the rest topsoil

you can buy decent compost from B&Q (3 large bags for a tenner) ....

 

Interesting - the plants were donated from one of those supermarket voucher offers and came with 'instructions'. the instructions didn't mention staking or compost / fertiliser, hence coming on here to ask

 

suppose it depends on the soil .... I have been planting loads of shrubs over the past 2 weeks .... you dig 6 inches deep and you hit building rubble (its a new build area, and what the developers have done is use the broken bricks and rubble as 'fill', then they cover that with 6 inches of topsoil and turf .... saves them thousands of pounds as it will cost a lot to dump that)

.... then, you break through that and you hit heavy clay

so, I am more comfortable with adding decent compost than filling the hole with heavy clay dug out from the planting hole

and as far as I understand, compost is used to improve the soil structure and add fungi and bacteria which aids the plant/tree

so, I would rather 'nurse' the newly planted tree or shrub for the 1st season .... the roots will eventually outgrow the planting hole and the roots will grow into the natural soil

but, i'm still learning

 

Hmmm ... was that not what the guy done who recently planted 45 leylandii and they all died?

I have been reading posts on forums of guys who grow using hydroponics and similar (these are the guys who grow 'illegal' plants in their lofts with growlights) ... they also experiment with all the nutrients and fertilizers on the market

and, those who grow in soil, and have tried all the options ..... say that good compost is King

 

what some people don't realize is that when you use compost, you still need to fertilize /feed on a regular basis ... from what I understand, the compost's main advantage is that it improves the soil structure, and adds beneficial fungi/bacteria , allows more oxygen to the roots and which in turn benefits the plant (there is not much NPK in normal compost)

and that's why I will be experementing with compost teas made using airpumps etc (my equipment should arrive tommorow)

if you look at a bag of John Innes #3, it specifically states that there is only enough nutrients to feed the plant/shrub for a few weeks

many people only use compost without mixing it with topsoil ... perhaps that is what the RHS has tested?

if you use this method, you need to feed with nutrinets more often until the shrub/plant's roots have outgrown the planting hole and enters the clay soil (the clay soils have a lot of nutrients)

another new thing on the market is rootgrow (Mycorrhizal Fungi) .... very good and has lots of benefits .... the drawback is that people use this when they plant a new shrub, then water using tap water (which has chlorine and kills the fungi)

some countries lace their tap water with chloramine aswell, which is much worse than chlorine, and which needs chemicals to disperse it (the guys who own aquariums always complain about chloramine)

chlorine will dissole/evaporate in a few hrs if the water is left in a bucket or watering can

I'm still learning, but this is how I understand it (so far)

 

I recall reading an article by a forester in which he stated that the commonest reason for young trees failing was being planted at the wrong depth. He stated that it was essential that the point at which the main root swelled out from the trunk be at soil level. Even newly delivered trees should be checked to see that they had not been recently repotted too deeply - since tree bark does not take kindly to being underground.

Apart from that - his only advice seemed to consist of keeping a young tree frequently watered until it had time to develop a deeper root system.

 

I am reading a book "The Informed Gardner" by Linda Chalker-Scott [I think bits of it are on Google Books] which debunks all sorts of myths. She's a PhD at a well renowned .EDU but I'm having serious difficulty believing any of her myth-busters. Partly that is because I have it ingrained to do it the old-way, but also because the "proof" that she provides just seems to fall massively short of answering the questions it immediately raises in my mind.

"Don't use drainage material in containers because water is less inclined to pass between substrates of different types"

So, for example, a layer of gravel in the bottom of a tub or urn, or gravel around a drainage pipe (and crocks in an old clay pot), does more harm than good.

But ... she says nothing about how well water will move from potting compost into air through drainage holes. In a clay pot there is only one hole at the bottom, in tubs quite often there are only a few holes (yes, I could make more) - how well does the water travel through the potting compost to get to the holes that are available, and would not a layer of gravel allow free passage to the drainage holes, and might that not be better than whatever "reluctance" the water has to pass from Potting Compost to the Gravel layer?

She has similar views on planting trees etc. For root-balled trees she says "remove all the soil" and plant as a bare root. Same with pot grown. Her view is that the difference in the potting compost in the original root-ball, and the surrounding soil, means that the root ball will either dry out (it won't draw water from the surrounding soil) [which I can believe] or the roots will be happier inside the original rootball and won't bother to try to grow into surrounding soil. Hence less stable [more prone to blow over in a wind] plants as well. She says that root-balled plants (wrapped in Hessian) are usually grown in clay, to get the root-ball to hold together when lifted, and that its thus unsuitable.

She goes on to say that "improving" the surrounding soil is bad for similar reasons.

Well, I had immediate doubts in my mind when I read that. I have planted things by just "plonking them in" - they have still been watered and fertilized - but the things that I have planted into lovingly prepared soil have grown much faster and been a picture of health compared to the struggling plants that were planted using the "plonk in" method.

I'd like to see the myths busted in a way that actually gives me confidence that the New Science is better than the Old And Trusted methods.

Good point about Chlorine and Fungi *Dim*, I have been meaning to hook the irrigation up to a pump in some IBC's (filled from the downpipes, but topped up from hose when no rain), and filled-from-hose could be allowed to sit for several days before use.

EDIT: "The Informed Gardner" by Linda Chalker-Scott is in Google Books here:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hbrhYNPaRo0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Putting a drainage layer in pots in containers must be very near the top of the list of the most often repeated misinformation in gardening.

Water drains from a pot by gravity - but unlike soil in the ground - capillary action of the potting soil is acting directly against gravity. When the pull of gravity becomes equal to the capillary action of the soil in the pot - water will stop draining - whether there is one hole in the bottom of the pot or a million holes. Therefore there will always be a layer of more saturated soil near the bottom of the pot and adding a drainage layer simply moves this layer further up the pot.
Reducing the saturated layer is achieved by using a soil which is made up of much coarser particle size and far less capillary action.

The downside of using coarser media is that plants need to be watered more often. However the upside is that roots are never stifled or over-watered and any undesirable fertilizer salts are leached out.

 

Yeah, I understand that, but to me a layer of gravel enables the water than DOES escape from the bottom [of the compost] to more easily find its way to a drainage hole. That's the bit I have not understood - does having a gravel layer (which reduces the ability of water to move from Compost to Gravel) exceed the ability of the water to exit from drainage holes [if there was no gravel]?

Note that this is not an issue of capillary action (as I have understood it) but rather one of water's reluctance to move from one type of substrate into a coarser one (the cause of that might be Capillary Action, but I don't know for sure).

This "fact" has been known for over 100 years, but Growers still continue to "croc" clay pots, and add a coarse drainage layer to containers.

The other, often not considered aspect of a Gravel Layer, is the commensurate reduction in the depth of the compost in the container - that one I do understand!

"any undesirable fertilizer salts are leached out."

And the fertilizer?

I get upset when I see my nicely mixed, blue!, Miracle Gro running out of the bottom of the pot (and fertilizing the weeds nearby!). I prefer (when time permits) to sit my pots in a "bath" (well, a gravel tray) of Miracle Gro mix, leave them until the rootballs are saturated, stand them to drain back into the "bath", and then they have all they need until the next time, plus a) won't need watering for a bit and b) if the root-ball had dried out at all this will have got it wetted again.

 

.....Or you could possibly try it more diluted - but applied more often.


Another bit of info along the same lines...

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1251.html

Kevin