How to planting Moringa Oleifera

Before you get started.
Before you start digging dial 811 to check for buried power lines, sewer lines, gas lines, or water lines. This is a free service provided by the utility companies, because if you dig into a buried line, at best you’ll get a bang out of it and at worse you will have a truly electrifying experience.
A utility representative will come to your property and mark for you the location any buried infrastructure services, allowing you to select the best location for your tree.
While Moringa Oleifera has a deep tap root, planting it adjacent to any water or sewer line is an invitation to trouble. All trees have surface roots. They need them to breathe and to absorb surface water during rainfall. The promise of a readily available and permanent source of water will be absolutely irresistible to the tree and an expensive headache for you in the future.


Reasons why to plant a tree.
Trees are beneficial to your environment. They reduce sound, produce oxygen, absorb CO2, sequester and store carbon, give shade, cool the ambient air around them, reduce wind and increase the value of your property. The Association of Realtors estimates that a mature tree can easily add as much as $5,000 to your bottom line.
In the case of Moringa Oleifera, to the reasons listed above you can also add nutrition.
The use of common sense when planting this or any other tree is essential. Left alone, by its very nature a Moringa Oleifera tree will grow to 36 feet in height. However, if you prune it according to the instructions given in “About Moringa Oleifera” in this website; the development of secondary, tertiary and quaternary branches will make it shorter and considerably wider instead.

Digging a hole for your new tree.
Having determined where your new tree will grow and live, delineate a circular area 36 inches in diameter; remove any grass or weeds and discard. To make planting easier it is a good idea to place all excavated dirt upon a plastic tarp. It will make clean up easier, prevent incidental damage to your lawn, and make back filling soil readily available to finish the job. Because you will be adding compost and/or well rotted manure during planting, you will notice that you have excess dirt on the tarp; this is what you will use to build a small berm to saucer water to your tree.
Our trees are grown and delivered in a burlap pouch 7 in. in diameter and 20 in. tall; hence the initial hole you dig needs to be 30 inches in diameter and 18 inches deep.
The easiest way to accurately determine the actual depth is to lay the handle of your shovel or of a rake across the hole and measure its depth at the center.
Having done so, you will next continue digging a “ring” around the outer edge in the bottom of the hole, leaving a mound of undisturbed earth in its center upon which you will rest your tree. The reason for doing this is that when you water your new tree, any excess water will settle in this 6 to 8 inch deep trench, preventing your tree from drowning yet allowing it to drink from it as needed.
The hole has been dug but you are not through yet. Arizona soil is compacted and in many instances it will drain poorly. To compensate and avoid the “steel pan” or “hard clay pot” syndrome that will impair drainage further and constrain root development into the undisturbed surrounding soil, you need to deeply scratch, gauge or score the sides and bottom of the hole. For this task you can use a pick, the edge of your shovel, the teeth of a heavy rake, even a heavy screw driver will do the trick.
Next it is highly recommended that you fill the hole with water and allow it to drain completely, thus providing extra moisture to the surrounding soil and further encouraging root development. Remember roots follow moisture, encourage them to grow.
You are now ready to finally plant the tree. Always pick it up by cradling the bottom of the root ball (this should not be a problem because our trees are not that heavy) NEVER pick it up by its trunk; because you risk separating the roots from the trunk, something that will inevitably kill your tree.
Place the tree upon the undisturbed mound in the center of the hole and have someone else view its position from different angles to be sure it is straight. Once you begin backfilling, repositioning a tree is a very difficult if not a nearly impossible task.
A good mixture to backfill the hole is 25% compost, 25% rotted manure and 50% native soil, just be sure to remove any stones and break up any large clumps. The tree’s roots will grow through the burlap bag, which in turn will decompose in time and further contribute to the fertilization of the tree.
When backfilling never burry the entire root ball, by placing a 20 inch bag on an 18 inch hole you avoid burying the trunk flair, this is where the roots spread at the base of a tree. This point should be partially visible after the tree has been planted.
The tree is finally in the ground and you have built the surrounding berm that will help contain the water. You are now ready for the final steps.
Cut a 4 or 5 inch wide band from a 2 liter plastic bottle, and slice it so that you can spread it and place it around the base of the tree (you can put it back together again with a staple after it is in place). The purpose of this ring is to make a collar that will keep the mulch you will apply next away from contacting the base of the tree for the next few months.
Mulch, mulch, and mulch some more. Mulch is a tree’s best friend; it retains moisture, detracts weeds from growing, reminds anyone with a lawn mower or a weed whacker to stay away, and as it decomposes it further feeds the tree. Wood chips and dried leaves make excellent mulch.
Finally water the tree a two or three times; the small berm you built around the planting hole will be your measure. Fill it up. The watering will accomplish two things. It will provide much needed moisture and more important, it will allow the soil to settle around the root ball and eliminate air pockets.
You have now done all you can, let Mother Nature take over from this point on. Just be sure to fill up the berm with water a couple times a week for the next year. Your tree will be a thing of beauty.
Source: www.treesofarizona.com