Planting Young Hybrid Willows and Poplars

First thing’s first: if you are a customer of mine and have any questions about this after reading everything below, please contact me at the email provided in your package before planting.

Hybrid Poplars and Hybrid Willows are both very hardy and grow extremely quickly. Treatment, care and initial planting of each are similar.  The following is a “Quick Start” guide to planting fresh cuttings.  This will be improved over time with pictures and videos.

During the growing season: Planting your cutting is pretty straightforward and simple! Plant your new cutting into a planter or other container with drain holes in the bottom, or into a 1 foot diameter and 1 foot deep hole outside. Plant most of the cutting under dirt leaving one or two leaf nodes up above the soil surface.  Fill around the cutting with a well draining potting mix.  Well draining potting mix may be a store bought soil mix, usually containing one or more ingredients like soil, peat, coconut coir, vermiculite, perlite and compost. I *do not* recommend using any potting mix containing fertilizer on these; fertilize if you wish only after well established.

Winter: Starting the plant in winter will be most successful if you establish them in a pot first so that you can control the soil mix, light and watering very precisely, and then plant outside in spring after the last frost. 

You may want to be a bit more careful at the edge of growing zone ranges, or if your soil is especially challenging or other more challenging environments. In these cases You may want to find microclimates that are most suited, for example a spot that gets morning sun but not afternoon in the hotter end of the range. Amend soil as needed so they are not planted in very hard clay only. Etc.

Once you plant your cutting, and also later when you replant to it's final location, it is very important to keep it watered so that the soil never totally dries out for the first few months. You can generally stop watering during the cold of winter after leaves have dropped off the trees.  These species will grow in full sun to partial shade in many kinds of dirt and are drought tolerant ONCE ESTABLISHED, but the greatest threat is going to be packed, dry soil.  They need the soil loosened a bit around them at planting time and to be kept from completely drying out FOR SEVERAL MONTHS.  If you have soil that dries out quickly I would recommend amending with peat moss or composted mulch to aid in water retention.