Large trees are not only beneficial to the environment, but they are also beautiful and increase your property value.
If you live in a newer home or a newer neighborhood, you may feel that your yard feels empty since your trees are so small.
You might be wondering how to make trees grow faster to make your small trees look more mature.
Here are a few ways to make young trees grow faster.
photo courtesy of Rachel_thecat flickr.com/photos/23209605@N00/3179558226/The Correct Tree
When planting a tree in your yard, you need to make sure that you plant native trees that grow well in your area, not a random pretty tree that you found at your local garden center. You will need to research to find out the native trees for your geographic location.
You also need to make sure to get the correct tree for that specific spot in your yard.
Different trees need different amounts of light, water, acidity of soil, and temperatures.
Study your climate and the climate preference of certain trees to determine the best tree for each spot in your garden.
Trees that have a mature height of 50 feet will typically grow much faster than trees that have a mature height of 15 feet.
Often trees that grow very fast are much weaker, tend to fall over (don't plant close to your home), and do not live as long as slower growing trees, so make sure you know the pros and cons of each tree you put in your yard.
Plant Right
When planting a new tree, dig a hole the same depth as the root ball of your potted tree (the dirt in your tree container) and at least 3 times the width of the root ball of the tree for rapid root growth. The hole should be shaped like a saucer with sloped sides, not like a cylinder, so the roots grow upward and outward towards higher oxygen levels.
Place your tree in the hole and make sure that the top of the soil of your root ball is the same height as the ground, or maybe 1-2 inches above the ground. Do not plant it lower than the ground.
Consider adding mycorrhizal inoculant root enhancer #ad to the tree roots, which is a beneficial fungi that creates a symbiotic relationship with the roots of your tree to increase nutrient and water uptake, which has proven to help trees grow taller faster.
Depending on the quality of your soil, you might want to add 5% to 50% soil amendments, such as compost or high quality store bought top soil, to give your tree the best growing environment. Make sure to mix whatever amendments you choose to use with your soil and don't just add it in layers.
Back fill your planting hole with soil, but do not step on the soil to compact it and make it harder for the roots to grow.
Make sure to water the tree every day for a week, then every other day the next week, then as needed depending on the weather conditions.
Mulch
Surround the base of your tree with organic matter that will help keep the moisture in the soil, but make sure to keep it away from the tree trunk.
Putting mulch against a tree is called volcano mulching, which does not allow your tree to breathe properly and damages the protective bark.
If mulched properly, the organic matter in mulch will decompose, adding to the nutrients in the soil over time.
Water the Roots
Dumping large amounts of water near a tree is not very beneficial since most of the water will wash away.
You can either use a drip irrigation system or tree watering bag #ad that waters very slowly over a long period of time or water the roots directly.
Fertilizer
Another way of helping a tree to grow taller is to use specialty tree fertilizer #ad, but wait until tree tree has been planted for at least 1 year so the tree roots have time to become established.
There are fertilizers made specifically for trees, containing the best nutrients to help them thrive.
Tree fertilizer is a good option if you have multiple trees in your yard that you want to be the same size, but one is much smaller than the others. You can fertilize just that smaller tree to see if it might catch up in size.
Keep it Watered
Water your trees on a regular basis, especially during dry spells.
Watering your tree is most important during the first year, but still very important during year 2 and 3.
A well established tree should not need watering outside of normal rainfall, unless there is a drought.
Safety
Protect your trees from the lawn mower and weed eater/string trimmer.
You can even surround your trees with specialty tree trunk protectors #ad to protect them from damage.
For baby or juvenile trees, you can make your own tree trunk protectors using a 2 liter soda bottle with the bottom and top cut off, or slices of a corrugated drainage pipe found at your local home improvement store. You should make a vertical cut in your protector so you can easily remove it once your tree outgrows it.
An injured tree uses much of its energy healing instead of growing.
You might also like the article How to Plant a Forest.
