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• Tips, tricks, and answers to your home-improvement questions
How to plant a cherry tree
What’s the best way to plant a potted cherry tree we bought at a nursery? —DAVID DEL POLITO, NUTLEY, NJ
TOH landscape contractor Jenn Nawada: A cherry tree will make a great addition to your yard. Just make sure that it’s planted in a spot that receives plenty of sun and that it has room enough to allow it to reach maturity. Choose a spot about 15 feet away from other trees, at least 4 feet from a fence or wall, and that has no overhead wires: Cherries can grow 25 to 30 feet high.
Spring is the best time to plant trees because the weather is generally wet and cool, which encourages root growth and minimizes the stress of transplanting. For this project, you’ll need a round-point shovel, a three-prong hand cultivator, a bag each of mulch and compost, and a small plastic tarp to collect the soil from the planting hole.
Place the tree in its planned location and use the shovel blade to outline a circular hole in the ground about twice the root ball’s diameter. Then set the tree aside and dig a hole just deep enough to contain the tree roots. You want the top of the planted root ball to be at or slightly
