Tips for Planting Your Live Christmas Tree

Cut Christmas trees are popular and potentially easier than live trees, but if you're planning to add a tree to your yard soon anyway, why not go for the live tree?

Rob Flaherty is the landscape supervisor at Wayland's . He offered the following quick tips for individuals considering a live tree this year. The first thing to note: Get the hole dug now, before the ground freezes.

1. Dig the hole before ground freezes. This part is very important: The hole should be two to three times the size of the ball of the tree.
2. Once the hole is dug out, fill it with straw, hay, leaves, anything that will insulate and keep the ground from freezing.
3. Mix excavated soil with peat moss and fertilizer and store the soil in bags, a barrel or wheel barrow in a garage/basement.
4. Planting time. Remove the leaves, hay, etc. from your hole.
5. When you are planting the tree -- regardless of how cold or snow covered, etc. the ground is -- place some of the warm original soil that you have stored into the hole. Plant your tree using remaining soil.
6. Water thoroughly!
7. Use the leaves, straw and hay that was removed from the hole as a mulch over the top of the root ball.

Flaherty added that it is important to keep the root ball wet while you have it in the house.

"If the needles start to turn brown, or if it gets too dry, the tree will be stressed out and the health of the tree will be at risk," he said. "One simple method would be to take a milk container and poke small holes into the bottom, and slowly allow the water to drip onto the ball."