Wallitsch Gardens offers advice when planting trees and shrubs

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Planting larger items like trees and shrubs might be intimidating. They’re more of an investment and you want them to live for years to come.

Matt Fravert, the Tree and Shrub lead at Wallitsch Gardens, shares the following tips with us about the best time to plant trees.

“I get this question quite a lot. The best time to plant I usually say — if you can get a shovel in the ground, that’s the best time to plant. Of course with a tree the joke is — the best time to plant is 20 years ago. But typically the fall works better. Because we tend to have a lot of rain in the fall,” Fravert said.

Plant in the fall.
It’s cooler out so you don’t need to worry about the heat stressing out the tree.
Kentucky has heavy clay soil so you must prepare the ground first.
Compost and soil conditioner can help break up the clay to make the soil drain better.
Water with a hose and let it trickle for 15-20 minutes.

And if you’re looking for a low-maintenance, hardy shrub, Fravert said you can't go wrong with a Gem Box. It's a Japanese holly.

“When we had that cold weather event two years ago almost, these were unaffected, whereas Boxwoods were as we know ... we replace a lot of Boxwoods with these simply because they are so hardy,” Fravert said.

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