Longleaf Pine Trees

How to Plant Grassy-Stage Seedlings

CAUTION ! — Don't leave a Longleaf seedling in a pot for more than a week or two. Why not? Because you'll make the same mistake I did a couple of years ago.

A Longleaf grassy-stage seedling doesn't do anything above ground for the first year or two of its life. It will devote almost all its energy into sending its taproot down vertically to a depth of three to five feet. Only when it's satisfied that it is firmly anchored in the earth will it begin to grow upward above the soil line.

A few years ago I put 25 Longleaf seedlings into one-gallon pots with topsoil in March of that year, with the intention of planting them into the earth in September. When in September I tried to pick up a pot, I couldn't, because the tree had sent down a taproot through the quarter-sized hole in the bottom of the pot. The pots sitting on soil were anchored to the ground, and the root couldn't be extricated. The pots sitting on concrete had dead taproots.

These are my suggestions for proper planting:

Clear a six-foot by six-foot square or a six-foot in diameter circle of earth of all grass and other vegetation.
Amend the exposed soil with a little topsoil or compost, if needed. [May be needed if topsoil was stripped from the land when your house was built.]
In the center of the cleared ground, drive a garden trowel vertically into the ground to a distance one inch less than the length of the Longleaf's rootball. Rock it back and forth a couple of inches to create space.
Pull out the trowel and turn it 90 degrees. Again drive it into the ground to the same depth and rock it a little.
Lightly score the circumference of the rootball, allowing roots easier access to their new surrounding soil.
Put the seedling into the ground, ensuring that it is vertical and the top of the rootball is one inch above the soil line. Fill in the empty spaces around it with topsoil or compost and tamp it so that the ground has no air pockets.
Cover the bare ground with a level two- or three-inch layer of wood chips or mulch, ensuring there is a four- or five-inch space between the mulch and the rootball. [Note that the only purpose of adding mulch is to suppress grass and weeds that might compete with the seedling for moisture and nutrients.]
Water gently.
Protect the seedling with a tomato cage or similar.
Water gently in times of little or no rain.

Longleaf pine seedlings are said to sleep, creep, and then leap. To the right is a seedling that has awakened from its sleep and has begin to creep on its 500- to 800-year journey through its lifespan.

The Cary Tree Archive is in the process of planting a half-acre re-creation of a Longleaf pine savanna – what Cary's land was before colonists and then later, Carpetbaggers, began and continued the exploitation of our state's magnificent forest. Longleafs in their various stages – grassy-stage; candle stage; and bottlebrush stage are there. Not yet are there Longleafs in the mature stage and old-growth stage. But your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will see them.

Hear Lois Nixon sing the praises of the Longleaf pine: