Next steps

[flamestepper]

I have been growing these for about 2 years now since I dug them up. This spring the maple started showing leaves but the poplar did not, after a few weeks I realized that most of the plan was dead. I cut it down an inch at a time until I got to green wood. It has since been growing well. My question is with the fall and then winter coming should I do anything different or just leave them alone and hope they survive the winter?

 

[MSU JBoots]

How did you protect them last winter?

 

[Orion_metalhead]

So, #1... soil looks awful for the Liriodendron... if its the same situation for the others, winter protection against too much rain is very important to prevent root rot.

Both the Liriodendron and the norway maple are very cold hardy so beyond watching the water situation, i would just heal the pots in some mulch somewhere relatively out the wind until spring. Id repot into a better draining soil next spring.

 

[Tieball]

I have taken small trees in pots, with plenty of bottom drainage holes, and just dug a hole in the ground slightly larger than the pot and slightly deeper. I then back-fill with a sand soil to the pot edge and then cover the top of the pot thickly with pine needles. Whether the procedure helps or not I don’t know but all the tree start-up did well. However, where I live the trees are buried in snow for quite some time…..which is a good natural insulator.