Consider the environmental conditions of your school site: sun, shade, slope, and soil moisture. These trees will do best in full to part-sun, and will help create new shade on campus. Remember – choose a water-loving species if the area stays moist or regularly floods. Choose a smaller tree if there are overhead wires.
If you’re planting in the front of your school, you’ll need to make sure there are no utility lines in your way. Call 811 five to seven days before digging. Once marked, make sure you plant at least 15’ from any marked lines.
Gently lift your tree by the base of the trunk and lay it on the ground on its side. Be careful not to break off any branches. Remove the pot from the tree’s rootball – you may need to push on the sides of the pot to loosen the roots so it can be removed. Remove any tags, string, or stakes.
Once removed, gently massage and shake the soil from the roots. Use a similar motion as if you were washing your hair. Roots should be semi – exposed and not bound in a circle. (If roots are completely encircling the rootball and cannot be manually teased out, you may need to use a shovel or pruner to trim a few of them to release the roots.
Now that you can see your rootball, dig your hole only as deep as the length between the trunk flare and the bottom of the rootball. Dig your hole two times as wide as the pot the tree came in. Your hole should be wider than it is deep. Tip – don’t toss the soil too far, you’ll need to return it to the hole shortly.
Place the tree in the hole to check the hole’s depth. The trunk flare should be even with the surrounding ground. If your hole is too deep, backfill soil and use your feet to tamp it down to a sturdy base for the tree to sit on.
Talk to your building supervisor or facilities team – they are experts on your campus! Let them know where you intend to plant because they may
