Akrontreefarms — tree farm and tree nursery | akrontreefarms.com
Which stock format your planting date allows, and what the size labels actually measure.
Start with the date. If you are planting between late autumn and early spring, every format is open to you, including bare-root — the most economical way to buy a long row. If the date falls in the growing season, bare-root is off the table: summer planting of dormant-lifted stock causes severe transplant shock, the single most common cause of first-year failure.
Field-grown deciduous stock is sold by caliper, the trunk diameter measured 6 inches above the ground. A 1-inch caliper tree stands roughly 8-10 ft tall; a 2-inch tree roughly 12-15 ft, depending on species and the growing season it came out of.
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Container stock uses US trade numbers that are really volumes: #1 is about 2 gallons, #2 about 5, #5 about 15, #15 about 25. The number describes root mass and handling weight, not height, so two #5 trees of different species can stand very differently.
Balled-and-burlapped stock is the middle path: dug with a root ball 10-12 inches in diameter per inch of caliper, burlapped and wire-tied. It handles like freight but plants with more timing flexibility than bare-root, and the burlap stays on at planting.
The trade-off is simple: every step up in size buys height on day one and pays for it in water and handling. A 2-inch tree needs 20 gallons a week in its first season and a ball roughly two feet across; a 1-inch tree asks for half of that.
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