I'm not sure what you mean by "packed the soil around them really well" but if
you mean you made good root contact without compacting the soil, it's good.
When I plant trees I try to give them similar conditions to their normal
environment. Assuming you didn't plant the tree too deeply (below the line
where they were planted in the container or root ball in burlap) you should now
put an inch or so all the way around the hole, as far out to the drip line of
the tree. Drip line is the limb furthest away from the center leader. It's
literally where the rain drips from! On top of that, put a 2 inch layer of
shredded mulch. I like native shredded mulches. Keep that fluffy using a rake
or hand rake and make sure you keep the plant watered. Before I plant anything,
be it an annual, tree or perennial, I fully saturate the root ball before I put
it in the ground. It's very difficult to wet the root ball once it's in there.

Hope that helps. BTW, do not feed it anything other than compost this year. I
buy Revitilizer Compost at The Natural Gardener www.naturalgardeneraustin.com
because it is state of the art compost with all the most vital microbial
activity and healthy soil will result from an application.

Victoria-no stock or ownership of the store, just a very pleased customer.


On Sun, 23 Feb 2003 20:46:26 -0600, "Gary Harper"
wrote:

I planted a Maple and a Pear tree in my back yard today. I packed the soil
around them really well, watered them really well, and then put a layer of
mulch around the trunk. Is there anything else I should be doing to keep
them from dying? I want them to be happy and health trees.