Nursery gardens

There are different ways of planting trees, mainly:

- From the seeds
- From the original plant (cuttings, layering or suckers)
- By pollination


In the nursery gardens they grow trees that they will sell to reatilers or to the general public.

One way of growing those trees is with the seeds or from cuttings.

The seeds or the cuttings will be planted in a first bed where they will be for a year time when some roots will grow. The second year they will be moved to a different bed. This will be done year after year, during at least 10 years. The roots will grow along those years, mainly the:

• Structural roots: large roots that have undergone considerable secondary thickening and provide mechanical support to woody plants and trees.
• Fine roots: Primary roots usually <2 mm diameter that have the function of water and nutrient uptake. They are often heavily branched and support mycorrhizas. These roots may be short lived, but are replaced by the plant in an ongoing process of root 'turnover'. A plant with a healthy mycorrhizas system will give the plant 10-15 times more nutrients and water.

During that time the trees will grow as well as their roots. If they are sold, they would be sold as bareroot trees (B/r). Their prices will go up to 25€.

When the trees grow higher and the roots are bigger, the nursery garden should start balling the roots of the trees. This is done by a machine that will take the roots out from the soil, with a big amount of soil around it and will put a net around the soil and the roots. The machine will rootball and wrap the roots all together.

Those trees are bigger and are called rootball trees (r/b). They can go from 1 m of diameter in their base to 10 m or more in very mature trees. Their prices are above the 100€ and can be as high as 6,000€ if it a mature tree.

When we buy a bareroot tree it has to be planted between November and March.



When the tree is a rootball one, it will be planted between November and May.

Seeds

Each different type of seed has a process and a time-need to germinate.

Before the seeds appeared, the plants reproduce by spores. In the plant realm, the plants evolve from the ferns and liverworts and create a new plant family; the conifers. They reproduced by pine seeds that need a long process to open and allow the seeds that are kept inside to germinate. In the life cycle of the conifers the fire is needed to open the pine nuts.

When the insects appeared in Earth, the plants evolve and allowed to create a new plant family, the flowering plants. They depend on the insects for pollination. Their seeds were much lighter that the conifers' seeds. Dependindg on each plant the period for germination will be longer or shorter.

The ash for instance would need 18 months of cold and heat to be able to germinate.

The willow seeds can stand a shallow dormancy period.