Your Fall Tree Planting Guide | Gardener's Path

Your Fall Tree Planting Guide

Autumn is the magical time of brisk mornings, hot apple cider, and approximately one to three million leaves in the yard that must be raked and bagged.

But before the leaves fall, while you’re out in the garden doing your autumn perennial cutbacks, consider whether your landscape could use another tree or two. Even if it means more leaves to rake.

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Yes? You’re in luck! Fall is the perfect time to plant trees. So finish your tidying up, head inside, warm up some cider, and decide which tree might be best for you and your yard.

Planting in autumn, with the season’s still-warm soil and plentiful rains, offers a tree just the right amount of time to establish a root system before the ground freezes (if that’s a thing where you live).

When the air temperature is cooler than the soil, a tree is likely to produce new root growth without new top growth.

When the tree comes out of dormancy in early spring, it will have a stronger, better developed root system and be in good shape to collect water and nutrients to grow and leaf out before the blaze of summer hits.

Although nurseries of all types are getting smarter about stocking a good supply of trees in the fall, you may have to shop around a bit to find the best selection.

It’s important to give some thought to what “fall” is where you live.

What Vermonters, for example, call fall may be what we in Central Texas call late-summer-still-freaking-hot-will-temps-ever-drop?

While the calendar and Hallmark movies (hayride with a handsome leading man, anyone?) may say one thing, your