Why don't you order your trees for spring delivery? Mrs. G

That sucks, they sent them way too late! I guess just heal them in for the winter. Or maybe pot them up, and keep in an unheated garage if you can. They are dormant at least.
If the ground becomes workable you can put them in. I planted some trees in March this year, they were breaking dormancy. They went back into dormancy. Take a shovel and see if just the surface is frozen.
I also put in bare root raspberries, and kept the potted blueberries inside. All survived btw. But that was near spring, we are far away from spring.
It's not your fault, and if they don't make it, ask for replacements.

"Why don't you order your trees for spring delivery? Mrs. G"

Well fall is an excellent time to plant trees, the ground is much warmer than spring. It gives you a head start on spring for sure. I myself think it is the best time. Plus many nurseries ship in January or February like Grow Organics, or Bay Laurel. So we are in the same boat in the spring. Stark Brothers even sent my blueberries in March. I had to pot them up, the last hard frost here this year was April 25th. I kept them 7 weeks in pots, it was a huge problem, as all available window space is taken up by my plants now.
I blame the nursery as the zip code says it all, they messed up.

I guess we have to give them a date ourselves. I planted a Weeping Santa Rosa about a month ago. It looks very good, no growth of course, but the branches are very green, it's had a chance to spread it's roots and take hold and be off and running much earlier than anything you plant here in the spring.
I know Bay Laurel can wait till the first week in March, and that is late enough for zone 6a, but probably not for you in Zone 5. Stark might honor your date, ask first or don't order from them. I will not be buying anything from them this year. But if I buy in the future, I will ask to deliver May 1st.
If they cannot, forget it. Raintree, Willis, Indiana, One Green World, Edible Landscaping, all had no trouble delivering at exactly the right time.

This post was edited by Drew51 on Fri, Nov 29, 13 at 19:47

If they were mine, I would go ahead and plant them. Surely the ground isn't frozen too far down this early.

I'd take a pickaxe and break through the frozen ground. Then if it's not too many trees, bucket the frozen ground up from the holes and bring it in a heated portion of your house (like maybe a heated garage?) to thaw. One the dirt is thawed, I'd plant the trees in the holes and fill in the holes with the thawed dirt. Tamp the soil down and the trees should do fine.

Be sure to actually plant the trees when the weather is above freezing, or at least not much below freezing. I once lost a peach tree because I planted it in sub-freezing weather. The roots can't take bitter cold air temperatures. They assume the temperature of the air very quickly and will die if it's too cold. They are much safer in the ground. Even frozen ground provides some insulation from bitter cold air temperatures.

Good advice olpea, but ice is forming on the lakes already around here, and Indiana is 4 hours away from me. The ground is quite hard around here. And I'm in zone 6a,
You would need a pickaxe. Even so it's supposed to warm above freezing this next week. We have had a few days in a row where it remained below freezing all day.
Mulch after planting!

Too late to help the problem, but if you mulch the plots ahead of time with a thick layer of leaves or other insulating mulch you can plant much later into the season.

During the warm spell you can try to catch the heat with plastic over the plots as well.

If you are planting in a sod I would be surprised if the ground is frozen solid, even in Z5. My outdoor thermometer reads 8 degrees F. right now, and though I expect it may be giving a read a few degrees low it's been pretty cold here but the digging is easy, even in bare dirt. I was digging out trees yesterday.

Yeah the ground has been heated all summer, so it will take some time to freeze. I really look forward to next season, good or bad it beats the winter. I'm going to try to get ahead of my non gardening chores so my spring will be free to garden! Yeah! Although I'm rather broke after the wife spent the mother load on black friday!

We are getting some warm air over the next week. I think that the crust might thaw out. Yesterday afternoon, I was able to get two cherry trees planted. It was sunny and almost 40F.
I'm going to cover the frozen spots with black garbage bags.
Here is what I ordered:
Sweet Cherry (Black Tartarian, Royalton, Blackgold, Stella)
Peaches (Reliance, Sentry)
3x Raspberries (Caroline, Prelude, Encore, Heritage)
Plum (Shiro)
2x Redbud

Wow, a big order! Cherries are a challenge, I have a few trees myself. I like Stella and Black Gold, I don't know much about the others. Good raspberries too. All decent in taste.
But you have a couple summers, and a couple fall bearing, I do too, well more than a couple! Ton's and ton's of them!
The peaches, well Reliance is just OK (I'm being nice), but a good first tree I guess. Sentry I don't know?
You have to have another plum to get decent fruit. Shiro is not self pollinating. That plum looks pretty cool. The color has ornamental value. Looks cool at least! I may pick that one up after I move.

This post was edited by Drew51 on Sat, Nov 30, 13 at 13:47

I ordered some cherries on G5 so I might be able to erect rain shelter over them. I'll try just to have a temperary thing to cover when fruit nears ripeness even if just with a tarp. They do tend to crack here in SE NY.

"Shiro is not self pollinating.

Drew,

Shiro is self-pollinating here. I understand self-pollination can be affected by zone (don't understand it) so it may be different in the Great Lakes area.

Heal them in outside (I like the north side of the house---but maybe there a different location may make more sense) to prevent the roots from drying out. If you have to buy some bags of compost or topsoil to do it do so, heap them up, spray some water on them and cover them up with the bagged "soil" removing air pockets around the roots before it freezes up.

Plant them in the early spring when you can dig the hole.

I agree, unless this is an unusually early freeze, you should not order trees this late or from someone you cannot specify a delivery month. Let them do the worrying over winter.

"Drew,
Shiro is self-pollinating here"

Well not our area, Stark's, Grandpa's, Gurney's and Treefarm nurseries say otherwise.
I could find no reference that it was self pollinating. Just the opposite actually.
Edit:

OK, I dug further and Dave Wilson Nursery calls it self Fruitful, and Raintree says partially self fruitful.
So it looks to me best to at least have another for a full crop. But who knows?

One Green World says it needs a pollinator.
Rolling River says Self fruitful.

This post was edited by Drew51 on Sat, Nov 30, 13 at 16:29

I have an ornamental flowering, Methley, and Santa Rosa plums; hopefully one should do the job.
I don't think I will order fall trees again - unless I have a really good excuse.
I have a couple other peach trees. They are whips or starting to branch. I have anBonfire, Elberta, O'Henry and Red Haven. Are there any early Peaches for Indiana?

I got four trees planted today. Tomorrow, I hope to get all the raspberries planted.

Yes both the fruiting plums are mentioned on the sites that feel you need a pollenizer. You're good to go!

I got 50 of my 200 trees in on nov 10th. I was hoping for them a week earlier, but it worked out. Last week would have been too late as our ground is froze pretty solid now too.
I had a water well problem and had to dig up the line. It froze my dirt that I dug out of the hole, made it pretty hard to get the dirt back in.

If you don't have too many of them you can take a big heater and use sheet metal to force the heat down on the spot you need thawed. Its not efficient or fast, but it works if you only have a few to put in. When I say heater I mean one of those diesel or kerosene heaters that looks like a jet engine, 50k btu or so.