What Are Bare Root Plants? (And Why They’re a Great Idea)
This is a good time of year to think about ordering bare root plants for your garden. But if you are new to gardening you might be wondering what this term actually means, which plants you might buy in this form, and how you go about planting these in your garden.
In this guide, we will help you understand more about bare root plants, and why you should definitely consider ordering some plants that are delivered in this way.
What Is A Bare Root Plant?
As the name will no doubt already have suggested to you, a bare root plant is one that is purchased with bare roots.
In other words, it is a plant in its dormant state delivered without soil around the roots. These plants have been grown in open ground, then are dug up and despatched to customers for planting between November and March.
Why Should You Grow Bare Root Plants?
One of the main reasons to choose bare root plants is that these are typically cheaper than those that can be purchased in pots.
If you have a larger garden project that you want to achieve – one that, perhaps, requires a greater number of plants, then buying the plants bare root is a cost-effective option. Even when purchasing a single plant, bare root plants can often be the best option financially speaking.
Another key reason to choose bare root plants is that it can allow you to cut down on the impact of your purchases on the environment and the wider world. Bare root plants are not delivered in a plastic pot – great news if you are one of the many people trying to reduce plastic use in your home and garden.
Choosing bare root plants also allows you to avoid plants that come in peat-based compost. Often, when we purchase plants in pots, we have no clue whether they are grown in a peat-based compost or not.
You may or may not be aware, but peat compost is being phased out because extracting peat from wetlands and peat bogs is terribly damaging to ecosystems upon which we depend for carbon sequestration, biodiversity, fresh-water resilience, flood prevention and more…
Because bare root plants are delivered and planted during the dormant season, they might not look like much at all above ground. But their roots can take time to establish themselves well after planting below the soil.
Bare Root Plants You Might Buy
There are a number of different categories of plants that it is a great idea to buy as bare root plants. Here are some of the options that you might consider for your own garden this year.
Bare Root Trees
Whether we are talking about fruit trees, native trees, or other ornamental trees for your garden, many are ideally purchased as bare root plants, to plant out over the winter months.
You might be looking for a single fruit or nut tree to grow more of your own food at home. You might be looking to plant a small food forest in your garden, or create a new woodland scheme. No matter the scale of your project, choosing bare root trees is a great option.
Bare Root Fruit Bushes or Canes
If you are looking to fill a fruit cage, or, again, increase the bounty of your garden and grow more food in your outside space, then bare root fruit bushes or fruiting canes are also options to consider.
Fruit bushes and canes can be grown in a wide range of locations, and incorporated into a range of different designs. You might make a fruiting hedgerow, for example, to edge a space or partition one section of the garden, or ‘garden room’ from another. Or you might simply place fruiting shrubs or canes among other edible and ornamental plants in mixed beds or borders.
Bare Root Hedging Plants
As mentioned above, fruit bushes can potentially be used to create an informal hedgerow. But of course there are plenty of other plants suited to either formal clipped hedging, or to informal hedgerows with a wide variety of wildlife-friendly native plants.
Hedging plants can also often be bought bare-root, which is a cost-saving option especially if you are looking to create a longer boundary hedge, for example.
Bare Root Flowering Shrubs
A number of flowering shrubs for an attractive and wildlife-friendly garden can also be bought as bare root plants. Roses are just one example.
It is a particularly good idea to grow bare root roses because this will give you a lot more choice when it comes to varieties than selecting roses from the offerings in garden centres grown in pots.
Bare Root Herbaceous Perennials
Many herbaceous perennials, both for food producing schemes and ornamental gardens, can also be bought bare root.
For example, some flowers to plant bare root include Agapanthus, Aquilegia, Astilbe, Bearded Irises, Eryngium, hardy Geraniums, Heleniums, Heuchera, Hollyhocks, Lupins, Peonies, Verbascums… Though of course there are many more that can be ordered and planted this way.
You can also find a range of perennial vegetables and herbs for your kitchen garden that are available as bare root plants in autumn/winter.
How To Plant Bare Root Plants
Bare root trees, shrubs or other plants will generally arrive by post. Typically, they will come with their roots within soaked damp paper or similar.
However, bare root plants might also be plants that you have obtained from a gardening relation, friend or neighbour, who has dug something up to give you from their own garden.
It is important, when bare root plants arrive, wherever its point of origin, to make sure that you are able to deal with it as soon as possible. Remove it from any packaging, and place its roots in water to give it a soak prior to planting.
If you cannot plant your bare root plant or plants right away, if you can, heel the roots into an area of damp soil somewhere in your garden, and water so that the roots don’t get the chance to dry out. This will buy you some time until you can get around to properly planting.
Before your plants arrive, you will ideally have prepared an area for planting. Of course this might involve removing any existing plants or weeds, and also making sure that the soil is suited, and amended with organic matter as required, to give specific plants the conditions they need.
Next, you will actually begin the process of planting bare root trees, shrubs or other plants. dig a planting hole, making sure that this is comfortably wide and deep enough to accommodate the root system of the plant in question. You need to make sure that the plant can sit as the same depth that it was previously at in the soil – so take note of where the soil marks come up to on the plant.
Take a plant and place it into the hole, making sure that you spread out the roots evenly. In certain instances, you may also add compost, other mulches, or other things like mycorrhizal fungi to the planting hole before your plant is positioned.
Once you are happy with the position of the plant within the hole you have prepared, you will fill in the soil around the roots carefully, making sure that is is gently firmed down and that there are not any air pockets.
With trees and shrubs especially, make sure that you are happy with the angle and orientation before you firm back the soil around the plant to hold it firmly in place. In some cases, such as when planting a bare root tree, a stake may be required, and you may tie the tree into this when planting.
Once you have firmed back the soil and ensured that the plant is firmly in place, water it in well. Then it is typically also a good idea to add a layer of organic mulch around your plants.
However, when mulching with any organic matter you do need to make sure that though it surrounds the plant in question, it does not actually touch or heap up around the crown, stems or trunk, as this can lead to rot. So be sure to leave a small clear area around the new plant.
With bare root plants, you usually won’t see much happening until spring. But then, in spring, new growth should emerge, buds appear and/or leaves unfurl, and you will see your bare root plants break dormancy and, if you have placed them in the right location, flourish in your garden.
References:
https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/plant-to-plant-bare-root/
https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-plant-a-bare-root-fruit-tree/
