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"Hi. In this video, I'm demonstrating how to plant a tree. Trees provide shade, beauty,
shelter, and privacy. The steps I'll show you are preparation, planting, and maintenance.
The tools and materials you'll need to plant a tree are firstly well, a tree. Today we're
going to be using [pittosporum], a lovely tree. Great for providing privacy and shade.
Easy to grow, quite fast-growing and easy to plant. You'll need a shovel, a stake and
ties. You'll need some compost to improve your soil. Some water crystals. Some mulch
to finish off. And you'll need some sea salt and a watering can. And to protect yourself
in the garden, always use gloves and a hat on a sunny day.
There are a few things you have to consider before you choose a tree or plant a tree.
You need to choose a tree that really suits all your requirements. It's a good idea to
travel around your neighborhood and have a look at trees that are growing well. Think
about what you want from your tree. Do you want it as a screenage tree? Or do you want
something that's more ornamental, or perhaps deciduous, loses its leaves in the winter?
Or do you want shade all year round? Using a native evergreen tree might be a better
choice.
Now that you've chosen your tree, you need to consider a really good spot to put it in.
You need to bear in mind how tall the tree is going to get. And equally bear in mind
that the roots will equally get that tall. So you need to plant it not too close to a
building, not too near your overhead lines, make sure it's not near pipes, and also consider
how much sunlight the tree will need.
To give your plant the best chance of surviving and growing well, plant it during early spring
or autumn. Finally check with your local council for any rules and regulations before you plant
your tree.
Now we're at the fun spot. We're able to plant our tree. Firstly, I'm going to give it a
good long drench. Really water it in well before you take it out of the pot. It helps
get it out of the pot anyway if it's a little sticky. While the plant ball is soaking up
all that water, we'll start digging our hole. You need to dig the hole twice as wide as
the root ball of the plant. Nice wide hole. The reason you do that is because you want
the root ball to be able to make its way out and investigate and move out basically out
of the hole out into the surrounding soil.
Now depending on where you live, you'll need to probably add an additive at this stage
to your hole. Using perhaps, dolomite or gypsum where there's a lot of clay. It's not necessary
with this soil, it's quite moist. But sometimes at this stage it quite a good idea to make
sure the drainage is good in the hole and fill it with water to see how quickly it drains
away.
Once your hole is dug now, we're nearly ready to plant our tree. What I usually do at this
stage is I just put the tree, pot and all, just to make sure it's going to fit in the
hole. You want the soil to come pretty much level to where the root ball meets the top
of the pot. So these are the water crystals for the plant roots to access during the hot
weather. Just add a little bit. And I also add just a little bit of sea salt to that
mixture. Then you're trapping some sea salt into the water crystals. Add water. After
about half an hour, this will be half a bucket of crystals.
Now it's time to get the tree out of the pot. Tilt the pot slightly and just ease it out.
What I do now is tickle the roots. They're going to grow outwards, which is what you
want them to do. Some plants do not like their roots to be interfered with too much, so don't
overdo the tickling. Now, moving it into its new house, its new home.
At this stage, we use our stake. Put the stake nice and deep so it's going to hold it nice
and strong. We're going to use a good fabric tie, doing in a figure of eights. So around
the tree and then around the stake.
Now it's time to take the wetting agent and you work it around. I like to layer it so
that you're making sure that it's available for the roots. Now it's time to add the compost
to the soil that I'm going to back fill. Usually you use about a third of your soil. What's
often good is to actually plant almost like you're in a saucer. So it's a little bit higher
at its sides and it's leading almost like a saucer, indented in the middle. So it's
a little bit lower here than here at the edge. That just ensures the water and the rainfall
fall down towards the center of the plant.
Now you see I'm working, it might not look like it, I'm actually working a lot of the
compost in as I'm going. Compost doesn't damage the roots. You don't add fertilizer at this
stage to the root ball.
Now I'm compacting around the root ball all the soil. Trying to get out all those air
bubbles. You need to water it all in now. This gets out all the air bubbles. A good
long drenching. Before you mulch, you should always ensure that your ground is wet. We'll
mulch it about five centimeters depth. A mulch that isn't broken down or well broken down
will actually cause nitrogen starving of a plant because the bacteria get very busy breaking
down the mulch, not breaking down the available food and nutrients for the plant.
Once you've added your mulch, moisten the mulch and get it all nice and wet. Every time
you water some of the nutrients get broken down that are already broken down are washing
into the soil. You don't have to fertilize the soil at this tree until early Spring,
really.
There you have it. Our tree is now planted. It looks gorgeous. For any farther help or
information, please do not hesitate and come in to see us at your local Bunnings Warehouse.
"