Planting question for you experts

[michael G]

Hello everyone I am very much a novice gardener and have recently bought 55 Lonicera Nitida plants to form a hedge around the border of my garden. I followed the advice of the man at the garden centre and added bonemeal and compost to the holes before putting the plants in, I also made sure they were well watered. After 2 weeks in the ground I noticed that 3 of the plants had brown leaves and looked dead. The garden centre gave me replacement plants and when I came to remove the dead plants they came out easily and the bottom of them looked as if there had been no downward growth into the earth in fact they looked exactly as they did when I first took them out of their pots. A friend suggested they had become pot bound. I am now looking at some of the other plants and my question to you all is should I pull up the tired looking ones and untangle the roots before replanting or will I do more harm than good. I can't keep going back to the garden centre! The plants are about a foot tall if that makes any difference. Any help would be appreciated.

[Two_Sheds]

Compost ... did you use multi purpose? That tends to be quite dry/drying ... I wouldn't put it in a planting hole unless you're on heavy clay.

Yes, tease out the roots a bit when you plant out, and make sure you puddle them in well.

Where are you? What's your weather been like? (it's not the ideal time to be planting a hedge)

[rustylady]

You say you added bonemeal and compost to the holes, but did you dig the ground over before making the holes?

[endymion]

Really and honestly the best way to plant a hedge is to dig trench and fully prepare the ground first, by digging quite deeply, breaking up the subsoil, and adding lots and lots of decent, rich, compost and/or rotted manure - not basic multi-purpose stuff which tends to only have a few months worth of nutrients.

Then it needs watering, lots and lots of water into the trench the day before the plants go anywhere near it, to make sure there's a good moist soil for them to grow into. The plants are going to be there for a very long time and need a good start if you're going to get a decent hedge.

When you take the plants out of their pots you need gently break some of the outside of the rootball, making sure some of the roots are pointing outwards and away from the main stem. It's especially important if they're potbound, you need to make sure the roots at the bottom of the pot are spread out a bit - don't worry if you break some, they'll grow new roots if they're happy. This makes them grow outwards into the surrounding soil instead or carrying on going round and round.

It's a good idea to plant with the main stems at an angle, it eventually makes a thicker hedge.

Backfill the trench and water again, and as you seem to be planting now, you'll need to carry on watering through to the autumn otherwise you could lose more plants. Mulch the plants with lawn mowings and leaves for as many years as you can get at the base, sprinkle blood fish and bone there too.

It's a lot of effort but is worth it in the long run. We've planted three complete hedges like this and never had a single loss - but it doesn't really help you, unless you're able to start again. You can dig the plants out, sort out the soil and replant them, as long as you don't leave them in the sun whilst they're out of the ground.

With individual holes - they should be at least double the size of the original pot, preferably much bigger, and should be at least double the depth too and prepared the same as the trench. You need to keep the plants watered, mulched and fed too.

[snohare]

Yeah. What he said.
If you want to do that - it sounds like a lot more than it is - then make sure the plants have had a bit of water a few hours before you take them out, wet the roots with a hose and then keep them covered while you dig the trench.
Of course you could try a variety of methods, but people would just accuse you of hedging your bets...