Dig a square hole

In the article on planting a tree that ran in the March issue of PM earlier this year, there was a recommendation to ‘dig a dish-shaped hole that’s twice the diameter of the root ball’.

Many years ago, when I was planting trees on my farm, a horticulturist friend told me that this method is incorrect. It causes the tree roots to grow around and around in the dish-shaped hole and will, in the future, not provide the tree with sufficient anchorage when it has grown in size, resulting in it potentially falling over during high winds.

Rather, he suggested that you should dig a square hole, slightly larger than the tree root ball, ensuring the bottom of the hole is larger than