Walnut Holler (5-Tree Native Mix)

When your box arrives

Open the box the day it arrives and plant within 2 to 3 days if you can.

Check the peat around the roots. It should feel like a wrung-out sponge. If it has dried in transit, sprinkle it with water and re-wrap.

If you can't plant right away, keep the bundle wrapped, damp, and cool. An unheated garage, shed, or cellar between 35 and 45°F will hold the trees for about a week. Keep them out of sun, wind, and freezing temperatures.

If you need longer than a week, heel them in. Dig a shallow trench in a shaded spot, lay the roots in, cover them with loose damp soil or mulch, and water. Heeled-in trees keep until the ground is ready, as long as they stay dormant.

On planting day, soak the roots in a bucket of plain water for 1 to 2 hours and carry the trees to the site in the bucket. Bare roots can dry out in minutes of sun and wind. The walnuts have the longest taproots in the box, so handle them so the taproot doesn't snap or bend.

Where they go

Plant the two walnuts on the north side of your site, 40 to 50 feet apart. Set the redbud about 25 feet south of the walnuts, and the two plums 45 to 50 feet south of the walnuts, 10 to 15 feet apart from each other. The whole planting fits in about 70 by 70 feet of open ground.

Tall trees go north so they never shade the smaller ones. The redbud sits at the edge of where the walnut canopy will reach, which suits a tree that takes part shade. The plums go furthest south, in full sun, where they fruit best.

If your site is narrower or oddly shaped, keep the pair distances first: walnuts 40 to 50 feet apart, plums 10 to 15 feet apart. Keep the walnuts at least 50 feet from buildings, septic lines, and overhead wires, and keep vegetable gardens out of their eventual root zone.

At a glance

The walnuts become the canopy, the redbud the edge, and the plums the sunny thicket. Both crop trees come in pairs because each sets a better crop with a partner.

These are seedlings, so every tree is genetically its own. Size and timing will vary a little from tree to tree. If your box included a regional substitute, the planting and first-year sections still apply.

Planting, step by step

Plant any time the trees are dormant and the ground isn't frozen. All five go in the same way.

1. Stake out the five spots from the layout before you dig. Call 811 a few days ahead to have buried lines located.
2. Clear grass and weeds from a circle 3 feet across at each spot. Grass is a young tree's biggest competitor, and walnuts are especially slowed by it.
3. Dig a hole twice as wide as the spread roots and just as deep as the root system. Rough up the sides if your soil is clay.
4. Set the tree so the root collar sits level with the ground. The collar is the color change where roots meet stem.
5. Let the taproot hang straight down, never curled or bent into a J. Dig deeper for the walnuts if needed.
6. Backfill with the soil you dug out. Skip fertilizer, compost, and potting mix in the hole.
7. Firm the soil with your hands to close air pockets, then water with 2 to 3 gallons.
8. Mulch 3 to 4 inches deep with wood chips across the cleared circle. Keep the mulch a few inches off the trunk.
9. Put a tree tube or wire cage on before you walk away. Deer find new trees fast.

On heavy clay or ground that stays wet, plant on a low mound 6 to 8 inches high.

Black walnuts

Give the two walnuts your deepest, best-drained ground on the north side. They will be the tallest trees in the planting by far, and they live for generations, so choose the spot once.

Site. Full sun and deep soil that drains. Creek bottoms and lower slopes with good topsoil grow the best walnuts. They struggle on thin, rocky ridges and in ground that stays wet.

Neighbors. Much of what struggles under a walnut is reacting to the dry soil and deep shade any big canopy makes. Walnut roots also release juglone, which affects a short list of sensitive plants, mainly tomatoes and their relatives, apples, and blueberries. Keep those out of the walnut root zone. Redbud is among the many trees that grow well near walnut.

Pollination. Walnuts are wind-pollinated, but a single tree's male and female flowers usually open at different times. Your two trees cover each other, so plant both for steady crops.

Care. Train each tree to a single central trunk. Keep the mulched circle clear of grass for the first several years, since grass competition slows young walnuts more than almost anything else. Water through the first two summers.

Harvest. Seedling walnuts usually bear their first nuts 8 to 10 years after planting, with heavier crops as the trees mature. Nuts drop in fall. Gather them promptly, remove the green hulls right away, and wash the nuts, discarding any that float. Dry them on a screen for two to three weeks before cracking. Wear gloves, because hull juice stains skin for days.

American plums

American plum is a small, fast tree that wants to become a thicket. It gives this guild early blooms and fruit years before the walnuts bear.

Site. Full sun and any soil that drains. The sunny southern edge suits it, and its white bloom is among the first of spring.

Pollination. A single tree may set a light crop. Your two plums pollinate each other, so plant them 10 to 15 feet apart.

Care. The roots send up suckers several feet from the trunk. Mow around them to keep two trees, or let the suckers fill in for a wildlife thicket. Branches carry short thorny spurs. Prune out any black, swollen growths on twigs, cutting several inches below them.

Harvest. Red to yellow plums about an inch across ripen in August and September. Pick when they give to a gentle squeeze. The skin is tart and the flesh sweet, which makes them a classic jam and jelly fruit.

Eastern redbud

The redbud is the guild's pollinator tree. Its pink bloom opens in early spring, before the leaves, when little else is flowering.

Site. Sun to part shade in soil that drains. It handles the edge of the walnut canopy well and tolerates clay as long as water doesn't stand. Plant it where you'll see it from the house or the path.

Bloom. Expect the first flowers 4 to 6 years after planting. The flowers are edible and make a tart, bright garnish for salads.

Care. Redbuds resent being moved, so choose the spot once. Prune right after bloom, and only to remove dead or crossing branches. Water during dry spells for the first two summers.

First-year care

Water, weed control, and protection from deer decide whether a bare-root tree makes it through year one. Everything else can wait.

Water. Give each tree 3 to 5 gallons once a week from leaf-out to leaf drop whenever rain falls short of an inch. One deep soak beats a daily sprinkle.

Weeds. Keep the 3-foot circle clear of grass and top up the mulch each spring. Never use a string trimmer near the trunk.

Deer. Keep a 5-foot tree tube or wire cage on each tree until the branches are above browse height. Leave trunk protection on a few years longer, since bucks rub young trunks in fall.

Voles and rabbits. Wrap the base with an 18-inch cylinder of hardware cloth. Pull mulch back from the trunk before winter so voles can't nest against the bark.

Pruning. Remove only broken or dead wood the first year. Start shaping in late winter of year two.

Fertilizer. None in year one. From year two, a spring ring of compost under the mulch is plenty. Stop feeding by early July so new growth hardens before frost.

Troubleshooting

Most first-year worries are normal behavior for a bare-root seedling. Check here before giving up on a tree.