How to Plant Trees

The most favourable period of the year to plant trees is during the winter months. The next best is during the monsoon season.

While you certainly may plant during other times of the year, the excessive summer heat can stress tender saplings, leading to a lower rate of success. Hence we recommend against planting during May, June, and October.

When planting, one should carefully lift the sapling out of the pot its in. If its roots have come through the drainage hole, you should try and push them back where possible and then lift the sapling out. In cases where root growth outside the pot proves really very difficult to release, you may simply crack open the pot. These broken terracotta pieces come handy during gardening otherwise.

The sapling should then be gently lowered into the soil, making sure its root flair is exposed. Its root flair is the transition stage between its roots and trunk.

Then, you fill in soil around it, packing it down with your hands to ensure the tree is stable. As you want the root flair to be exposed ideally, you should repeatedly pack down the soil around the tree until it’s free standing. One can comfortably put a great deal of their weight while doing this— don’t be afraid to really pack it in!

Oftentimes gardeners bring in fresh balu mitti to replace the poorer quality soil at their location. While this can help improve soil fertility, it can be expensive to scale up and impractical to replace large quantities of soil. Hence, we recommend amending the soil at your site as far as possible. 

If you find that your soil is hard, caked, and dry, you should add organic matter like leaf litter and vegetable scraps, fresh soil, and a bit of manure. When planting, loosen the soil in a reasonable radius around the tree —say 2-3 feet maximum— to give it some breathing room. In such cases we recommend planting hardier trees as they’re more robust and equipped to handle harsher conditions. To retain moisture and fertility, we strongly recommend mulching the area— that is to say covering bare soil with leaf litter— as it reduces evaporation and keeps soil cool and moist.

If your soil is sandy or saline, we strongly recommend our beach forest species as frankly speaking, you cannot replace all the soil a grown tree will be exposed to. You can still have excellent shade, flowering, or fruiting trees!. If you decide to plant trees which aren’t beach forest species, you will likely find they’re stunted, slow to grow, and may be more vulnerable to diseases also.