If the ground is not ready for planting in the fall, or if it is desired for any reason to delay until spring, the trees or bushes may be heeled-in, as illustrated in Fig. 151. The roots are laid in a furrow or trench, and are covered with well-firmed earth. Straw or manure may be thrown over the earth still further to protect the roots, but if it is thrown over the tops, mice may be attracted by it and the trees be girdled. Tender trees or bushes may be lightly covered to the tips with earth. Plants should be heeled-in only in loose, warm, loamy or sandy ground and in a well-drained place.
Fall-planted trees should generally be mounded up, sometimes even as high as shown in Fig. 152. This hilling holds the plant in position, carries off the water, prevents too deep freezing, and holds the earth from heaving. The mound is taken away in the spring. It is sometimes advisable to mound-up established trees in the fall, but on well-drained land the practice is usually not necessary. In hilling trees, pains should be taken not to leave deep holes, from which the earth was dug, close to the tree, for water collects in them. Roses and many other bushes may be mounded in the fall with profit.
It is always advisable to mulch plants that are set in the fall. Any loose and dry material—as straw, manure, leaves, leafmold, litter from yards and stables, pine boughs—may be used for this purpose. Very strong or compact manures, as those in which there is little straw or litter, should be avoided. The ground may be covered to a depth of five or six inches, or even a foot or more if the material is loose. Avoid throwing strong manure directly on the crown of the plants, especially of herbs, for the materials that leach from the manure sometimes injure the crown buds and the roots.
This protection may also be given to established plants, particularly to those which, like roses and herbaceous plants, are expected to give a profusion of bloom the following year. This mulch affords not only winter protection, but is an efficient means of fertilizing the land. A large part of the plant-food materials have leached out of the mulch by spring, and have become incorporated in the soil, where the plant makes ready use of them.
Mulches also serve a most useful purpose in preventing the ground from packing and baking by the weight of snows and rains, and the cementing action of too much water in the surface soil. In the spring, the coarser parts of the mulch may be removed, and the finer parts spaded or hoed into the ground.
