How to Plant Your New Plants
Soil is everything when it comes to plants, whether they’re small little annual flowers or giant trees. Plants take up nutrients and water from the soil, and the soil they grow in needs to be hospitable to the roots, full of the nutrients they need, and containing a healthy ecosystem of microbes and fungi.
The best soil will have a balanced composition of the 3 major nutrients plants need—nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium—as well as minerals like calcium, magnesium, and boron. It will also have predominantly organic matter with some clay and sand mixed in. So before planting anything, you want to make sure your soil is going to grow healthy plants. Please see our “knowing your garden space” page for some soil information.
Most likely you will be planting your plants directly in your native soil. *If you have extremely heavy clay with little to no organic matter, see the bottom of this page for alternate planting technique that works better for heavy, sticky clay.*
Here are my 10 steps for planting annuals, perennials, and shrubs~
(for tree planting, click this link: Arbor Day Foundation)
I planted these daylilies 1 1/2 feet apart because daylily clumps grow bigger in diameter each year and I didn’t want to crowd their roots. After a couple of years of growing, these 3 plants will look like 1 big mass.
1) First, determine your spots. Make sure you keep in mind the mature size of your plants when planting. If you’re planting a bunch of flowering plants that eventually grow to be 2 feet wide each, plant them all 2 feet apart. If you want a fuller, lusher look, you can plant them a little closer together, like 1 ½ feet apart, but not more than that. If plants are too close together, they compete for nutrients and water in the soil and their leaves crowd each other out and reduce sunlight exposure. Ideally, all of your plants will touch or nearly touch each other—this reduces exposure of the soil to sun, which means it retains moisture better and reduces opportunities for weeds to grow.
2) Next, dump some good quality compost on top of the planting area—3 inches for annuals or perennials, 6 inches for shrubs. Use your shovel, trowel, cultivator, or your hands to incorporate the compost into your native soil. If planting edible plants, make sure your compost is organic and food safe.
3) Now dig a hole twice as wide as the diameter of the pot of the plant you’re planting and about the same depth (not deeper—this may go contrary to other advice you may have read, but I’ve learned that keeping the planting hole at the same depth leads to less sinking, less likelihood of root rot, and more stable root balls. (Don’t worry, roots are quite determined and will still bore down deep into the soil if they want to; you don’t need to dig the hole deeper for them).
4) Sprinkle a generous handful of organic fertilizer (I like Microlife or Jobe’s Organic) into the bottom of the hole.
5) Remove the plant from the pot and gently loosen the root ball so the roots aren’t all bound up in a clump. You want to encourage the root tips to aim outward, not continue growing in a circle like they have while living in the pot.
6) Place the plant into the amended hole and pull the soil back in and press it in around the root ball. Level out the soil so that the plant sits in your garden bed at the same height as it did in the pot, don’t bury the stem or crown (where the branches start to come off from the main stem), as this can kill your plant. You want the roots completely covered, but the above-the-earth portion of the plant to have full exposure above the soil.
7) Water thoroughly. This not only gives the plants the water they need to reduce transplant stress, but also settles in the soil around the root balls and removes air pockets. You want every piece of root to have contact with soil. If you notice the surface sinks and exposes some of the root ball, add more compost and water in—repeating as often as necessary until the soil is at the correct level for all plants.**
8) If planting something that needs support, add those supports now (stakes, cages, etc.).
9) Finally, cover all of the newly planted soil with mulch. Natural wood mulch (not dyed!) or pine needles are best because over time they will decompose and add more nutrients to the soil. If you live in the desert, however, you may want to use a thick layer of stone or pebbles. Please avoid mulch embedded with pesticides, as these harm all insects, not just the pesky ones, and our native pollinators are being killed left and right by excessive and unnecessary poison use. Cedar mulch is an effective deterrent to problem insects without harming beneficials.
10) After mulching, water again. New plants take a little time to recover from the stress of being transplanted; make sure you keep them adequately watered for the first few weeks. After that you may be able to reduce water use depending on the needs of your particular plants.
This shrub is planted half beneath the original soil level, and half above. I then mounded the soil up around the sides like a volcano and mulched thoroughly. This will keep this shrub from rotting in my heavy clay soil.
**There are some shrubs that like to be planted high because they are prone to root rot otherwise. For these, you’ll plant them so that they sit a couple inches above everything else with the soil mounded up around their root ball like a hill. When planting your shrubs, do a little research to find out what planting conditions they need.**
That’s it! You have created your garden!
You can now enjoy your new plants and watch them grow and bloom.
If you’d like some basics on keeping your garden healthy and happy, visit my “Tend Your Garden” page.