At Trees on Wheels we specialize in selling LARGE trees with tree spades. WE DO NOT SELL SMALL TREES.
Click here to go to our common name list or species list
The following are ways trees are offered by the LANDSCAPING INDUSTRY to the public:
- Bare root trees: (not Trees on Wheels) Small trees without any soil, offered in the spring and usually in bulk (often in quantities of 50 or more). Evergreens are the most frequently seen in this way. These trees are usually kept in cold storage to keep them dormant, and certain trees may need sweating to break dormancy and wake them up again. Probably the cheapest way to buy trees, but more risky and only available in spring. Trees on Wheels does not offer bare root trees.
- Potted trees: (not Trees on Wheels) Trees sold in plastic pots (up to 30 gallons in size). When using potted material, be certain to cut circling roots that have grown out to the wall of the pot then circle the plant. Failure to do so is likely to be fatal as the circling roots grow and strangle or girdle the tree over time. (see CIRCLING ROOT photo below)
- Ball and burlapped trees: (not Trees on Wheels) Usually less than 3 inch caliper (trunk diameter) grown in a sack, or in the field where they are dug and placed in a burlap sack and then bound in a wire basket. Beware of trees from prior years left above grade over our winter months, they are probably quite dessicated, and nearly dead. Also be sure the soil matches of our Dane county. Evergreens brought down from northern Christmas tree farms are often raised in sandy soils, and may do poorly in the heavy clay content Dane soils, hence make poor landscape trees.
- Spaded trees: (Trees on Wheels specialty! ) Usually are dug and installed by truck mounted tree spades as shown in photographs. Our spruces, pines and larger shade trees are up to 30 feet tall. We have one of the largest truck mounted tree spades allowed on our highways. We also have skid steer mounted tree spades manufactured by Optimal of Germany, which feature hemispherical rootballs to assure the greatest amount of root per pound of rootball.
At Trees on Wheels we do not at present offer bare root liners, or potted trees, or ball and burlap trees. We sell BIG trees and install them with truck-mounted tree spades. We have tree spades of 62, 65, and 90 inch diameter (rootball). We can deliver up to 12,000 lbs. of soil with the tree you have chosen.
This photograph shows a potted field liner. Note the plastic pot and the circling roots. Note how shallow the root structure.
About Trees
Trees are defined as woody plants that reach over 12 feet of height at maturity. Generally trees are divided into two categories: leaf trees, called hardwoods, and conifers called softwoods. The frailties of these definitions are that a balsa becomes a hardwood, and the southern yellow pine is classified as a softwood.
Within hardwoods there are again two sorts of trees, capital trees, those that make up the canopy of the forest, and the understory trees. Capital trees at this lattitude are the ashes, beech, birches, lindens, locust, maples, oaks, willows, and more exotics including: coffee trees, hackberries, katsuras, tulip poplar, and yellowwood. Then there are the understory trees, often called ornamentals: hawthorns, hornbeams, ironwoods, magnolias, redbuds, tree lilacs, cherries, crab apples, flowering pears, fringetrees, serviceberries, and the like.
Within the conifers are arbor vitae, pines, spruces, firs, cedars, junipers, dawn redwoods, hemlocks, and larch.
At Trees on Wheels we sell large trees that can be grown in Dane County installed with tree-spades. Here are species that we carry (common name list) (scientific name list)