Temporary bare-root storage

What do you do if your bare-root plant arrives, but the weather stops you planting it? Steve and Val Bradley describe the options available to make sure your plants survive

- Steve and Val Bradley

MANY hardy plants are available bare root at this time of year, meaning they are sold without soil or compost. Those bought by mail order arrive well packed with paper or sacking, ready for planting in the garden or a container. Some will have been lifted (dug up) and dispatched, while others may have been in a cold store for a brief period. Bare-root plants are sometimes available from garden centres, either in individual packs or, in the case of hedging plants, tied and wrapped in bundles of ten or more.

Temporary holding area

Whichever form you purchase, it is important to unpack them as quickly as possible and plant or pot them as soon as you can. If everything has been prepared, they can start to establish in their new surroundings quickly, but if the preparations have not yet been completed or the weather is bad, you need a temporary holding area until conditions are right for planting.

The most common temporary measure is to place the plants in a shallow trench outside in the garden to keep the roots moist until they are planted: this is known as heeling in. However, if the weather or soil conditions are too bad for planting, they are probably too bad for heeling in as well, so another method of temporary storage has to be considered.

It is sometimes recommended that plants are stored in a frost-free place with their roots in a bucket of water to prevent drying out. The problem with this method is that if you keep the roots in water for too long, they get damaged. Submerging roots in water for more than three weeks means they will start to suffer tissue damage due to a lack of oxygen affecting the plants’ respiration.

Wet bagging