If they did not come with directions for heeling in maybe look up "heeling in" on the web. Otherwise basically what is needed is a safe place with loose soil or mulch to stick them into until planting time. Commercial growers often have deep piles of sawdust or similar material for the storage of stock waiting to be shipped.

dig one hole ...

insert all the plants .... all at once ...

backfill half way... water... fill rest ..

walk away ...

its called healing in .. as the boy notes ..

they are dormant .. and ma nature will hold them as such.. until spring ...

no soaking in a bucket for weeks.. no potting.. no nothing...

inform seller that you MIGHT make a claim in spring ... i once did that.. and they resent in spring w/o me requesting.. i ended up with twice as many as i ordered ...

i think this would all fit on one page.. if you have to print it out ...

i move all my plants bare root.. not much option with my sand ... it falls off ...

there is simply no special rules for such.. all you need to understand.. is that they are dormant... otherwise.. plant as you would anything else..

i am sure you got brandons planting guide many other times... just follow it ... see link

when the light goes on.. and you start to understand.. there are usually not special rules for any given plant .. then you take a quantum leap into just 'winging it' .. and usually winning ....

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

If they're bare root, I'd also heel them in. I have heeled in ten o trees at a time by digging up a trench and just lining them up closely in it, and throwing the soil back over them. They did fine when I was ready to plant. I planted them through the winter when the soil was workable as I got to them.

Only one of the plants is a tree. One is a bone hardy evergreen subshrub. And one is hardy perennial. Sticking them all in the same hole doesn't sound too clever to me, even temporarily. If it's really too cold to plant them in situ I'd pot up the Gaultheria and the Polemonium and heEl in the Beech.

It's not necessarily too cold...It will be soon though, and I don't have time to plant them right now. They were delivered to my elderly parents. I'm almost thinking of suggesting he stick them all in a bucket of dirt and put the bucket in the garage. Trick is temperatures are fluctuating between very warm and quite cold right now, and we are expecting a cold snap very soon.

How many plants total are you talking about?

I'm in SE MA, probably in a similar climate to your parents. They're forecasting daytime high temperatures in the mid-fifties through Wednesday, then dropping to mid to low forties for the next week. Nighttime temperatures are forecast to be mostly above freezing for this week with a few forays below freezing. We still haven't had a frost and according to the Nov. 7 UMass Extension Landscape Message soil temperatures in the region are well above freezing.

Depending on how close your parents are to the coast, I would expect the daytime high temperatures to stay fairly constant in the forties for the next few weeks, just drifting lower through Thanksgiving which is less than three weeks away. Of course, Mother Nature has a wicked sense of humor and may prove me totally wrong.

Do you have a compost pile there that your father/handyman could stick the plants into?

If not, I like calliope's trench, maybe with the trees at one end, the Jacob's Ladder at the other. and the wintergreen in the middle. That would give them a little different environment per floral_uk's objection.

We have nice long fall weather here in SE MA and so long as those roots are protected I think they'll be fine until you get there for Thanksgiving.

Claire

edit note: I speak as someone who once kept three peonies heeled in on my outside window ledge in NYC until I could get up to MA for Thanksgiving to plant them. They were fine.

This post was edited by claire on Sun, Nov 9, 14 at 18:18

Just an observation that I love that UMass extension has such an informational website.
That university is also the cheapest source for tick testing.

UMass Extension also has the Landscape Message Archive going back to 2004 so you can check conditions in previous years, if you like that sort of thing. They have good fact sheets on nasty pests too.

Claire

flora ....

we are talking about old man doing it..

i think he can manage one hole.. and jamming them all in.. until ed can get there ...

it would be nice to be more careful ... but if i were trying to explain it to my 84 year old mother... one hole is good enough... if she didnt bust a hip digging the one hole.. lol ...

i am more afraid of them leaving them soaking in water for a week or three ....

ed.. get them to save a bag of leaves ... reset them when you can get there.. so they are set properly... roots down.. crowns at proper depth ... etc ... and cover heavily with leaves .... even if you cant do it until thxgcvg

no bare earth..with winter sun frost heaving them out of the ground in late winter ....

ken

claire, ken_adrian, you both have a good grasp of the situation.

It gets warm enough they may break dormancy...but it could get too cold by the time I go down for Thanksgiving. (Or may not). My big fear is they will leave the plants in the house. Trying to give them physically non-strenuous, fool-proof instructions. I do like the idea of potting the wintergreen and Jacob's latter. Can be done inside without bending over. How does everyone feel about my idea of sticking the beach in a bucket of dirt? Drainage would be a problem, but the bucket could be moved around into the garage or basement based on temperatures.

I'm hoping I can plant them around Thanksgiving.

Do you have one plant each, for a total of three plants? That's a lot easier for your parents to deal with - I had thought you might have ordered multiple plants of each type.

This is a crazy idea and I may be shot for it, but what if your parents put each plant in its own brown paper bag half filled with soil from the yard (or potting soil) and put the three bags together outside in the shade near the foundation. Brown paper bags from the grocery store are reasonably hefty (they can be double-bagged) and will survive for three weeks if they're not lifted up again. Even if they get a little rip the soil will stay in a pile.

Cardboard boxes would be even better if your parents are the type to hoard cardboard boxes (mine were).

Shade near the foundation should even out temperature swings.

Claire

I should have explained my thinking: The brown paper bag and/or cardboard box would be somewhat permeable to water so it would be less likely to have a bog inside - sort of like a terracotta pot. If the water really built up the container would spring a leak. I was reacting to the idea of a bucket filled with soil which bothers me.

The bag or box would have to be left open at the top to let light and air in.

I also was trying to find a solution that would involve something your parents already have handy, and would require the least effort on their part.

Once the bags were set outside they should not be moved again. Forget about rain or frost.

Claire

I do understand that the parents are elderly, Ken. If the ground isn't frozen is it any harder to stick in a spade and waggle it to make a slit for the beech than it would be to fill a pot or bucket with soil? As for the Polemonium and Gaultheria, I am imagining that they are pretty small and could probably be heeled in or potted up just using a trowel.

claire, there are supposedly 10 Bare Root Beech, 12 Jacob's ladder, 10 spotted Wintergreen, all really small. Would the plants really need light?

floral_uk, The difference is putting them in the ground would involve my parents going outside and bending over. Putting things in a pot or bucket of dirt could be done inside at a table inside. If Dad feels up to doing that, he might as well plant them where they are going...

edlincoln: That's more what I expected - three plants total would have been wasting a good sale. That also makes a lot more work for your father. Bending over outside is a little scary at that age (picture him getting dizzy and falling into the hole).

I don't think the plants would need light but it might inhibit molds if the soil is damp (just guessing here). More important would be to keep the tops open to promote air circulation.

"Really small" plants is good in this case. I'm still thinking three containers total, one for the 10 beech, one for the 12 Jacob's ladder, and one for the 10 spotted Wintergreen. Crowding isn't going to make much difference - there won't be much root growth in the seventeen days until Thanksgiving when you ride to the rescue.

Good luck,
Claire

edit note: If brown paper bags or cardboard boxes aren't available, how about plastic shopping bags with soil inside? Anything to get the roots covered and the plants out of the house ASAP.

This post was edited by claire on Mon, Nov 10, 14 at 13:49

Do you know how the bare root plants were packaged? Maybe you could call Bluff View Nurseries and ask them exactly how they're put in the box. Are they in a few plastic bags that your father should remove? Or maybe in a big bag with some kind of material like peat moss or wood shavings that could just be dampened and the plants left in the box?

If you explain your long distance problem they may be helpful (don't yell at them for the late delivery).

Claire

I see now. I was working on the assumption there was one of each, or at least a small number. I have kept dormant bare root trees (6 footers) 2 weeks outside the back door with just the roots in black plastic sacks kept slightly moist. But maybe it gets too cold where you are?

I wouldn't worry about them breaking dormancy, they haven't had any winter chill yet and just went dormant. If it were February or March that would be different.

claire 6B,, I believe they bundled stuff together in wet newspaper. I hope my parents got them out of the house...I did tell them to do that. You think bags are better then buckets or the fridge?

floral_uk, It's not too cold now...we're in that weird time when temperatures fluctuate between the 60s and 30s.

I also realized that it's Chimaphila maculata, not Gaultheria. (I can hear ken_adrian yelling at me about scientific names...)

This post was edited by edlincoln on Mon, Nov 10, 14 at 19:10

That's 'pipsissewa', a lovely name, much nicer than 'spotted wintergreen' or 'Chimaphila maculata'. We have a small stand across the street that just appeared last year (or may have been there for years but no one noticed) - pretty little plant.

If the plants are still in wet newspaper, I'm inclined to say leave them there! in the original box! Don't try to separate them and don't put them in soil. Just make sure they get air (box is slightly open and any plastic bags are open) and the box is outside. You could put the original box LOOSELY wrapped in a trash bag so the newspaper doesn't dry out but air can get in. Or forget the trash bag.

The soil is wet here and humidity is fairly high, so once the temperatures drop (forecast says Thursday) the wet newspaper shouldn't dry out before Thanksgiving. Maybe ask your parents to check once a week to make sure the newspaper is still wet. I would still put them near the foundation in shade to even out temperature shifts.

I may be wrong, but that's what I would do. The situation sounds much better now.

Claire

edit note: Nighttime lows are expected to be hovering around or just below freezing for the next few weeks, but that's only for three or four hours and then the temperature will go up again. I don't think the inside of the box will freeze - cardboard and newspaper are good insulation. Winter in southeast MA is really slow to come.

This post was edited by claire on Mon, Nov 10, 14 at 17:22

edlincoln, you never asked me but I'll give you a pearl of wisdom along with everyone else. Your suggestion of "stick them in a bucket of dirt" sounds adequate. Wanna know why? Your order has probably been sitting on the back of Uncle Kebo's pickup for the past month. There is a reason that Bluff View can sell 12 Trillium grandiflorum for $6.50 THEIR STUFF IS WILD COLLECTED.
The address is McMinnville TN right? Enough said.
Ferns & wildflowers are grubbed out of the hills (including National Parks) and held until they can put orders together. That explains why so many of their orders are late. See Garden Watchdog.
In the future, my suggestion is to stay away from cheap, wild-collected material from McMinnville.

sam_md: I kind of figured that when I went to the Bluff View Nursery site to see what they carried. There is no way they could charge those prices if they had the expense of growing the material.

I won't be ordering from them.

Claire

This post was edited by claire on Mon, Nov 10, 14 at 20:00

I'll admit I got the "spotted wintergreen" because I got it mixed up with creeping wintergreen. (Which I've also been trying to establish under the pines. I'm reassured it can grow in coastal Massachusetts. Claire, could you take some photos of the plants near you? Also, I have an odd request. Several sites said it is very picky about it's symbiotc relationships with fungi...Could I persuade you to scoop up some dirt from near where the plants near you grow?

edlincoln: The Pipsissewa (I love that name) was first noticed by a neighbor on June 27, 2012 and she asked me what it was. I didn't know so I searched and identified it. This is what it looked like then.
{{gwi:473153}}

{{gwi:473154}}

I didn't try to move it but I think the neighbor took some. I just took a look but the patch is mostly buried in leaves and not much is visible.

If you email me an address through my member page (I think the settings are OK) I'll wait until a little closer to Thanksgiving and mail you some soil. I'm leery of letting it sit around too long in unfriendly conditions.

Claire

I thought this youtube short video was helpful and had some good tips for heeling in bareroot trees towards the end.

It mentions using a bucket or wheelbarrow as an option.

Here is a link that might be useful: Heeling in Trees