Dug (B&B) Tree Planting instructions* for those Christmas Trees with the Roots on you Bought from us:

The most important thing is that you keep the soil damp at all times, but not so saturated that the roots can't get any air.

1) Digging the hole***

2) Keep the rootball soil damp till it is planted.

3) Leave the Burlap and Twine** on the rootball and tree trunk.

4) Do NOT plant it any deeper than it was growing originally! VERY IMPORTANT!    

5) Plant it just a tiny bit (~1") higher so the rootball drains well.

6) Leave the Burlap and Twine** on the rootball and tree trunk.

7) Plant it

8 Flood it!

9) Provide support if the tree is tall

10) Mulch it!

11) Easy on the fertilizer the first year

1) Digging the hole
I suggest you dig it about 2-3 times as wide as the rootball in order to provide lots of soft, fluffy spoil for the roots to grow into easily. At least dig wide enough so there is room for soil to run down all around the burlap rootball (or bare roots in the case of a container (pot) grown plant. Dig about as deep as the root ball, not much deeper. Don't dig much deeper than the rootball is tall, because when the loose backfill under the rootball settles, the whole plant will sink in too deep when the soil settles. See 4 & 5 below. 

2) Keep the rootball damp till it is planted. Regardless of what the weather report says, or how cold it is, the tree is a living thing that must not be allowed to dehydrate.  When you water a tree, every time you water it, apply enough water so it can saturate the whole rootball. It takes some effort to keep a root ball adequately damp if it is sitting around above ground, but don't let it dry out. Keep in mind it does not matter to the tree if the weather man thinks it is going to rain- if the plant is dry, water it. 

How long can I keep them before I plant them? As long as you keep the soil moist - this requires lots of constant attention in the summer if the plants are actively growing - it can be kept theoretically for months... although I doubt most folks would make the effort to hose down their plants twice a day when the weather gets in the 100's... Anything you can do to minimize transpiration from the plant until it is planted would be a good idea.

3) Leave the Burlap and Twine** on the rootball and tree trunk.
The purpose of all the burlap and twine (on bigger trees) is to keep the soil ball as tight as possible around the roots, and if there is twine wrapped around the rootball, the idea is to essentially lash the heavy rootball to the tree trunk so if it gets jerked around during handling the roots, soil, and tree trunk will all move as one solid  thing rather than getting loosened up.

Burlap and twine, even if green tinted with preservative to make it last longer, seldom lasts more than about a month or two once it is buried in the ground. Tree roots, during this time, might grow a few inches at most through the burlap, and will have no trouble growing through the weave of the burlap. After all, these are the roots evolved by nature to push right through heavy soil found in nature. No, do not even slit the burlap. Slitting the burlap would serve no purpose whatsoever.

4) Do NOT plant it any deeper than it was growing originally! VERY IMPORTANT!    
Water uptake by plants is an active process; it actually uses Oxygen from the air, and takes energy. Although it is OK to flood the roots of a plant for a few hours at a time, it is not OK to bury a plant significantly deeper than it was growing in nature. If you plant too deep, the roots will effectively be smothered from not being able to breathe. 

There is arguably a trade off; the shallower you plant, or if you were to plant in a raised bed above ground, then the tree is at your mercy to provide watering to keep the soil damp.

5) Plant it just a tiny bit (~1") higher so the rootball drains well.
Any shallower or higher above ground, and it will tend to dry that much faster. Too deep is bad since the roots would tend to suffocate. If you've dug way too deep a hole, then I guess you better plant it with the rootball raised still higher above the original soil line, cause it's gonna sink down that much further when the soil settles.

6) Leave the Burlap and Twine** on the rootball and tree trunk.
Really! I have never heard a good reason to remove or loosen it at all, as long as it is the kind of twine and burlap we use, nothing plastic. Even if the twine is around the stem of the tree at planting level, it will rot before it strangles the tree- again, if it is made of plastic or anything that will not rot, then it would need to be removed. NO, the roots will not have any problem growing through that burlap. Roots just don't grow that fast, and the burlap will rot before it would constrict the roots at all. Do not slit the burlap.

7) Plant it.
Put the tree gently in the hole, now is the time to backfill a little if you need to raise the tree. Then backfill with soil that is fine enough so there are not just big clods of dirt against the rootball, but rather finer soil touching the it all over so the roots can grow right through the fabric into the new soil.

8) Flood it.
Right after you put it in the ground and put soil around it, We suggest you flood the daylights out of it in order to make the backfill float down around the rootball so there are few air spaces. This is also a good time to do any straightening up that needs to be done since the tree should be easy to move around in the mud. Good contact between the rootball and the soil you plant it in is essential for the roots to grow, and as this water drains, which might take overnight to happen,  most of the big air spaces will disappear. Once the tree is planted, It is still important not to let it dry out. But you also need to let it drain between waterings; usually watering about every week - 10 days after it is planted when it gets very dry is a good idea unless there are significant rains.

9) Stake it up if the tree is tall
Help from the folks at NCSU- How to stake trees to keep them from blowing over - I recommend the method show in figure 3. 

10) Mulch it!
It almost doesn't matter what you use for mulch within reason, as much as that you do put 3-6" of mulch like Pine Bark, Pine needles, wood chips, or something of the sort for a good ways around the tree to help keep the soil from drying out and help keep weeds down, avoiding the need to mow so close to the tree so you don't hit the trunk with the mower. I've seen the difference in fields of plants were we neglected to mulch some areas and the difference in plant growth between the plants with bare soil as compared to those mulched was enormous. But don't put mulch very deep directly against the tree trunk. We use tons and tons of the stuff the tree service companies and VDOT like to dump here for free, since we don't mind carting away the occasional log, branches, leaves, broken tool, oil can, car door or whatever else finds it's way into their truck.

11) Easy on the fertilizer the first year
Keep it simple- Just give each tree a couple handfuls of Lime, if that, and wait a year before fertilizing. The most common failure of plants to live is usually drying out the first year after planting. If they do get a little too dry, the situation will be made worse if they were fertilized very much. So if you are unsure about what you are doing fertilizer-wise, the conservative thing to do would be to not fertilize them, or apply only a very little fertilizer.

Still want to apply some fertilizer? Here's a little more information:
Fertilizer has a salt like effect on the water status of a tree. Not so much Lime, which is less water soluble, but most nitrogen (causes more growth) containing fertilizers are pretty salty, so should not be over applied. Evergreen trees are not very fussy about fertilizer. Usually a little cheap, general purpose fertilizer is all you need if anything.

We do recommend a heaping handful or two of Lime, preferably Dolomitic lime which provides Magnesium as well as Calcium be sprinkled in at planting so that first good watering you do right after backfilling the hole will wash the lime right in to the soil. Lime being less soluble than the kind of fertilizer that provides Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium, takes longer to work, but also lasts much longer in the soil, whereas regular fertilizer with Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium usually needs to be reapplied in smaller amounts more frequently. Here's way more information than you need to know about plant nutrition (fertilizer).

The most common kinds of fertilizer plants need are:

Lime:
Makes the soil less acid, and supplies Calcium (Ca) (and Magnesium (Mg), if you use Dolomitic lime). Lime and Gypsum will also help the soil by increasing the degree of aggregation of soil particles, a good thing if you have heavy clay soil.

Nitrogen (N) Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K):
The main ingredients in most fertilizer since they are the things most plants would like to have a little more of.

The best thing to do, if you want to be serious about plant nutrition, is to have your soil tested. This will take the guesswork out of fertilizing. It all depends on you taking a good representative sample of the soil though. If all you do is dig a little where the dog happened to pee last night for example, it will not result in an accurate reflection of the soil most of your plants will be growing in (unless Fido is extremely methodical and motivated!)

But y'know what? you hardly really need to worry about this fertilizer stuff for the trees we sell on most soils as long as you keep them watered properly, and don't plant them too deep. Watering problems are the biggest causes of tree transplanting troubles. Consider that most of these trees do just fine in nature without any fancy fertilizer or lime. We successfully grew Pine Christmas trees for many years with absolutely no applied fertilizer nor lime.

There was a fine article on soil sampling technique from the folks at NCSU, http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/gaston/staff/soil.htm , but for some sinister reason they've move or removed it, so now it isn't there any more. Let's hope the folks from my alma mater, VA Tech, don't go pulling the rug our from under our feet and switch these following URL's... 

See also: 

Building Healthy Soil

Unfortunately, trying to keep a link to the Virginia Tech Soil Testing Laboratory is aiming for a constantly moving target, so I give up.

Any technical questions about this stuff???
I'll be happy to answer questions for those folks who have bought plants from us; simply show me a copy of the sales receipt from when you bought our plants. I am otherwise too busy to be running an online horticultural course for people who bought their things at Wal-Mart or wherever, and I am really no horticultural expert. I would, however, happily include the Url for one of those online group chat kind of thingys if anyone knows of an appropriate one if you email it to me. But if you see anything wrong about the advice I am giving, feel free free to email me with a suggested correction if you like.

I'd really like to have your feedback!

*For a while there, I was gonna call this page:

~ A technical treatise on Virginia Christmas Tree Planting guide. Spruce, Pine, Fir tree growing instructions - Fertilizer, Mulch, Lime, Watering for healthy transplanted trees ~ ...or something like that, but then I thought better of it...

**This assumes it is not plastic twine; we usually use Flax or Jute (organic, meaning natural fiber) twine that will rot. If you buy a tree somewhere that is wrapped in plastic rope or fabric, you should NOT leave it on. It is important to remember that the twine on the rootball is there to hold the rootball tight together; THE TWINE ON THE ROOTBALL IS NOT A HANDLE and you should not use the rootball twine as a handle to move the tree, since pulling on it will loosen it up and defeat it's purpose.

*** I just ordered a slide hammer shovel that should make hand digging much easier. For those times when you just can't seem to push or slam the shovel into hard ground, or you keep hitting a root, this slide hammer "Bamboo shovel" should do the trick.