Your tree's first year at home

You do not need to be an expert. You need a few habits, and you need to know which of your instincts to ignore. Almost every young tree that struggles in its first year does so for one of three reasons: it was watered by guesswork, it was put in a pot too big, or its roots were left sitting in water. None of those requires green fingers to avoid.

The first fortnight

Unwrap the tree the day it arrives. Take the packaging off completely, check the compost is damp rather than dry or waterlogged, and water it if it needs it.

Then leave it somewhere sheltered for a few days. It has been in a box, in a van, possibly on its side. A spot out of strong wind and out of blazing sun lets it settle before it has to cope with your chosen position. This is also the moment to photograph it, front on with something in shot for scale, because in five years you will want the picture you did not take.

Resist the urge to do something. Do not feed it, repot it or prune it. A tree that has just travelled needs water and quiet.

Watering without guessing

The most common mistake is not drought. It is a small splash every day, which wets the top two centimetres and leaves the root ball dry underneath while the surface looks cared for.

Push a finger into the compost to the depth of your second knuckle. If it is damp at that depth, do nothing. If it is dry, water thoroughly — enough that water runs out of the drainage holes — then leave it until it needs it again. Fewer, heavier waterings encourage roots down through the whole container. Frequent light ones train roots to sit at the top, which is exactly where they suffer in the first hot week.

Containers dry out far faster than open ground, and they dry out in winter too: cold, dry easterly wind will empty a pot while you assume the rain is handling it. Check in January as well as July.

The opposite failure is quieter and more lethal. Roots need air as much as water, and a pot standing in a saucer or sitting flat on paving with blocked holes drowns slowly. Raise it on feet or bricks so it drains freely, and tip out standing water after heavy rain.

Position

Most of our collection wants an open outdoor position, and open means genuinely open rather than a narrow gap between two walls. In the first year, aim for an open spot sheltered from the worst of the prevailing wind, which will otherwise rock the root ball loose inside the compost before you notice.

If the tree needs support, stake low and loose. A short stake in the lower third of the stem holds the roots steady while letting the top move, and that movement builds a strong trunk. A tall stake tied tight gives you a tree that cannot stand up when you remove it.

Pots, and when to move up

Bigger is not better. A young tree in a very large container sits in a mass of wet compost its roots cannot reach, which is a slow way to lose it. Move up a couple of pot sizes at a time, and let the tree decide when.

The signals: roots circling the surface or coming out of the drainage holes, water running straight through without wetting anything, the pot drying out much faster than last year, or growth that has slowed while its care is unchanged. Late winter or early spring, before growth starts, is the usual moment. If none of those signs are there, leave it for another year — repotting is not an annual subscription, and we do not pretend otherwise.

Use a loam-based compost rather than a light multipurpose one. It holds structure, weight and nutrients far better over several years, and a top-heavy tree in a lightweight pot blows over.

Feeding

A slow-release feed once in spring is usually all a container tree needs. Do not feed in late summer or autumn: you will push out soft growth just in time for it to be frosted.

The first winter

Deciduous trees look dead in winter. Oak, birch and cherry will drop every leaf, stand bare for months, and be entirely fine. Do not diagnose a dead tree in February. Scratch a twig lightly with a thumbnail in spring — green underneath means living tissue — and wait for bud burst before concluding anything.

Scots pine keeps its needles but sheds some older inner ones. That is normal, and browning from the inside is not the same as browning from the tips.

The real winter risk to a potted tree is the roots, not the top. In open ground, soil insulates. In a container, roots are exposed on all sides and can freeze solid. Move the pot to a sheltered spot against a wall, group pots together, or wrap the container — the pot, not the tree — in hessian or bubble wrap. Keep checking the compost, because a dry freeze does more damage than a wet one.

What to write down

Keep a short record as you go, in the tree’s own timeline: the date it arrived, its height, when the buds broke, when the last leaf fell, when you repotted it and into what. Add a photograph from the same spot each season. It takes a minute, and it becomes genuinely valuable later, because nobody remembers which spring was the cold one.

If you are worried

Send us a photograph and tell us what you have been doing. Most first-year problems are watering, drainage or wind, and most are fixable if caught early. We will not pretend a tree is guaranteed — it is a living thing, and some do not make it — but you should not be left guessing alone. Optional annual care is there if you would rather the seasonal prompts came to you.

General growing reference: RHS: growing trees in containers. Your species, soil and site still need to be considered individually.