FIELD NOTE 001: Fall Is the Real Planting Season
These notes exist for a simple reason: for five generations, our family has taught Kansas City how to take care of the ground it lives on. Jack Tobin did it on the radio. We do it here.
Start with the truth most people get backwards: spring is not the best time to plant a tree in Kansas City. Fall is.
Why fall wins
The air cools down in fall, but the soil stays warm for weeks, and roots grow in warm soil. A tree planted now spends the fall doing the one thing that matters: building roots. No summer heat to fight, no daily watering just to keep it alive. When spring comes, it doesn't start from zero. It's already settled in and ready to grow, while a spring-planted tree is still recovering from being moved.
How we plant one
• Dig wide enough to work, not wider. You don't need a hole two or three times the size of the ball. Dig wide enough to get around it, backfill the bottom with a good compost and topsoil mix, and finish with the native soil that came out of the hole.
• Set the ball about an inch high. The root flare, where the trunk widens at the base, should show above ground. This is where most people get it wrong: they plant too deep, and the tree pays for it for years.
• Leave the burlap and wire on the ball. Pull them off and the ball falls apart. The burlap dissolves over time. But cut the string wrapped around the trunk, and cut the burlap back from the trunk. Leave that string on and the tree will choke itself out as it grows. Guaranteed.
• Build a watering ring. Use the native soil to form a ring around the tree, like a moat. When you water, the water pools and soaks down into the roots instead of spilling off everywhere.
• Mulch like a donut, not a volcano. Two to three inches deep, spread wide, pulled back from the trunk.
• Keep watering into winter. If fall and winter turn dry, water on the milder days. A dormant tree has no leaves, but its new roots are still thirsty.
• Don't fertilize the first year. Use a root stimulator instead. The first year is for one job: taking root. Fertilizer pushes the tree's energy up into foliage and branches: growth it can't support yet. Feed the roots first; the top will follow.
• Stake only when necessary. If a tree rocks a little, let it, the movement actually helps it root in and stabilize itself faster. Stakes are training wheels. If you do stake, take them off after one year. And if you ever see the trunk starting to grow around the strap, they come off right away.
The mistakes we see everywhere
Planted too deep. String left around the trunk. Mulch piled against the bark. Stakes left on for years. None of it kills a tree fast: it kills it slowly, and by then nobody connects it back to planting day. Most “my tree just died” stories started the day it went in the ground.
So be patient with a new tree, and remember this line: first year it sleeps, second year it creeps, and third year it leaps.
Plant it like it's going to outlive you. Done right in the fall, it will.
Platz Landscapes, Blue Springs, Missouri
