You’ve just planted a tree—good for you!
Assuming you’ve done a good job (and I’m sure your have) of choosing a healthy sapling, adequately preparing the site, and properly backfilling the amended material around the root ball, what else can you do to assure the health and long life of your new arboreal friend?
Water it! That’s right. One of the most important things you can do to assure the happiness and longevity of your newly planted tree is to keep it adequately hydrated.
And what are the choices we have on how we can deliver the water?
With a bucket, of course—but that can get pretty heavy pretty quickly, especially depending on how far you have to tote the load!
Or by dragging out the ol’ garden hose and standing there holding it while the water trickles around the base of the tree.
Or by installing a Treegator® around the new tree and utilizing it to supply the water evenly and slowly to the place it’s needed most—deeply into the root system.
The Treegator® is a green polyethylene bag that you zip around the base of the new tree, fill with water, and walk away from while it slowly (about 5 to 9 hours) waters your tree!
The bag is about 18 inches wide by 30 inches tall when empty (it tends to “squat down” as it is filled with water). You load the water into it by lifting the nametag flap at the top and inserting your garden hose.
After completely filling the bag (about 15 gallons), the water is then slowly supplied to the tree roots through small holes in the bottom of the bag.
What are the advantages of using the Treegator® to water your tree?
Since the bottom of the bag is in direct contact with the soil, there is virtually no chance of any water being lost to evaporation while it is being delivered. And the continued covering of the soil by the bag further inhibits evaporation.
Also, since the water is supplied so slowly, it doesn’t run off, but rather trickles evenly downward to the roots.
The company recommends one regular size Treegator® bag for watering trees up to about 4 inches in diameter and refilling the bag with water at least once a week depending on soil type and atmospheric conditions (rainfall!!).
For trees larger than 4 inches (up to about 8 inches) in diameter, a couple of the bags can be zipped together for a larger water supplying capacity.
Each bag retails for about 20 dollars.
An interesting and useful tool for hydrating your young trees, especially during their early days of growth and establishment.
