plant them according to the info at the link ...

anything else.. is trying to out do mother nature.. and you dont have any experience to do such.. besides that it wont work ...

those look like some fine plants.. for what you paid ...

ken

ps: plant them today ...

Here is a link that might be useful: link

I would put it in ground at once. Good thing about norway spruce is that unlike many other species you can plant it as deep as you want in well drained soil. That way you can minimize branchless part and get more full appearance later.

It seems to me that roots are at this point undersized maby becauce of too much watering and poor drainage earlier or too small pot. More sun is allso now required. They have been growing too close to one another. Otherwise it seems like a fine young plant.

Little over 200 000 norway spruces were planted into clearcut-areas last summer under my supervision here at Oulainen, Finland.

Thank you Ken and Jarpe. This is why I love coming to GW, get answers straight to the point. :) I will plant them tomorrow morning.

Jarpe, I thought planting a tree to deep could cause it to die from suffocating the roots. I would like to be able to cover the lower bare spots if that isnt the case

plant it at the depth it was grown in the original pot.. or in the field wherever it came from ...

i dont know if he is right or wrong ... but why bother ...

when this thing doubles.. or triples in size.. your thoughts today.. will be irrelevant .... and the larger branches will have come down.. there is this concept called gravity ... lol...

and when its 40 feet tall.. like the one in my yard.. whether or not the first branch is one or two feet from the ground .... wont matter.. if you havent trimmed it up by then ...

you got some real nice young trees there.. their only fault at this point is your expectation that a 2 year old tree would somehow.. be better ... my only expectation is that it lives for one year.. and that should not really be an issue.. unless you insist on screwing around with pots .. BTW.. your pot is a gallon or two to small for that tree ... and your media is wrong ... but you will solve both those issue soon enough .... and they should not be in the house until you can plant them ...

ken

Thanks Ken. I understand the pots are small for the size of trees (only pots I had laying in my garage) but this was only going to be a temporary solution while I figured out what I was going to do with them. I didn't have any place to plant them temporarily and if I was going to pot them I was going to plant them in 3 Gallon nursery pots. I got them bare root and didn't want the roots to dry out. :)

ps...I will be planting them today :)

This post was edited by Cal_00 on Mon, Nov 4, 13 at 16:48

Ken is right about inrelevancy of planting dept in long run. And choosing safest way is always wisdom.

But at least here in Finland we sometimes plant norway spruces very deep especially in dry times becauce in forestry, only watering they get is from the rain.

It is true that they wont suffocate or suffer even though sometimes only highest tip can be seen from the ground. In fact they seem to grow best this way, but main reason for this of course is better water resourses in times when surface soil is dry.

I know this method would probably be fatal when used forexample with pines or abieses or broad leaf trees.

a small pot.. is surely better than a bucket of water for days on end ... so it was a good idea..

you are newbie-ish ... and you have 5 ... we want them to be a bulletproof as possible.. so we do it the easy.. KNOWN way .. IMHO...

if you had the 200,000 jarpe talk about.. i would say.. why not experiment and do some his way.. i have no doubt.. it would work..

and even you.. could.. should you be the experimenting type.. plant one as he suggests.. and become the resident expert on such ... just for the shear sake of learning ...

please.. as you become enabled.. start learning the latin names ... and use them ... Picea abies here ...

and finally ... there are better sources than ebay ... if these fail ... its going to be hard to figure it out.. beyond your source ... though w/o seeing the roots.. they look pretty good.. for their age ....

good luck

ken

ps: i hope i gave you the planting guide .... too lazy to flip.. all the way up to look ...

Thanks again Jarpe and Ken. I will surely use that guide.

Oh, and as for the roots go...they were pretty massive. They were longer then the tree itself too.

Pull roots open and spread out in wide planting hole; plant with crown at soil level. As specimens develop much bigger top above will soon obscure existing short bare section of stem.

Select planting sites with room to accommodate quite large trees.

If they're sure to blow over they'll have to be staked.

How are the trees doing now - 8 years later??