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A bare-root larch arrives looking like a bundle of kindling with ambitions. There's no pot, no compost, nothing to reassure you — just a whip of woody stem with a fringe of roots. This is how trees travel best, and how they establish best, provided you get them in the ground while they're dormant and don't let the roots dry out in the meantime.
Bare-root stock is lifted and sold between leaf fall and bud burst, so your planting window runs roughly from November to early March. In most of the UK, late November and early December are the sweet spot: the soil is still holding some warmth, so roots settle in and make a little growth before the cold bites. Late February and March work too, but the tree then has to cope with drying spring winds before it has rooted properly.
Wait for a day when the ground isn't frozen and isn't squelching. If your larch arrives and you can't plant for a few days, heel it in: dig a shallow trench in a spare bed, lay the roots along it, cover them with soil and water well. Kept cool and damp, a bare-root tree will hold for a week or two. Don't leave it in a warm garage, and never let the roots see the air for long.
Larch is a tree of open ground and light. Give it full sun, or at least most of the day, and expect it to sulk in heavy shade. Remember that it's a deciduous conifer: the needles turn gold in October and drop, which means no winter screening and a clear, airy silhouette instead. If you wanted an evergreen hedge, this isn't it.
Space matters more than most planting guides admit. European larch will comfortably pass twenty metres in good conditions, with a broad crown to match. Don't tuck one a metre from a boundary, over a septic tank or beside a drain you may need to dig up. Roots aren't the thuggish, paving-lifting sort, but a big tree next to a building is still a big tree.
On soil, larch wants depth and drainage. It manages on a range of pH but struggles on thin, dry soils over solid chalk or rock, and hates sitting in water. Japanese larch (Larix kaempferi) copes better with heavier, wetter ground than European larch (Larix decidua); the hybrid Dunkeld larch is vigorous and widely planted. There's also a point worth knowing before you buy: larch is a host for Phytophthora ramorum, the disease behind felling in several parts of the UK. If you're planting on any scale, or in an area with known infection, check current guidance from the Forestry Commission or your nation's forestry body, and buy UK-grown stock from a reputable nursery.
Clear a circle at least a metre across, taking out grass and perennial weeds. Competition for water and nutrients in the first two years is the single most common reason young trees stall. Fork over the cleared ground, and if your soil is heavy clay or water sits in the hole after rain, plan to plant on a slight mound rather than in a sump.
Don't fill the planting hole with bags of rich compost or manure. A larch roots better when it has to reach out into the surrounding soil, and too much richness encourages soft growth that frost and wind punish. A bucket of garden compost mixed through the backfill is plenty. For a shelterbelt, plant two to three metres apart; for a specimen, give it room. To test drainage, fill the hole with water and look again in the morning. If it's still brimming, pick another spot or mound the tree up.
A small whip on a sheltered site makes a better tree without a stake — the movement encourages a thicker trunk and stronger roots. Stake only if the site is exposed, the tree is over about 1.2 metres, or the roots are sparse. Use a short stake and a flexible tie, check the tie each spring so it isn't cutting in, and take the stake out after two or three years.
Rabbits will strip the bark from young larch in winter, and deer will browse the leader down to nothing. A spiral guard or a small wire cage around the base is cheap insurance; against deer you need something approaching 1.2 metres tall. Where rough grass is likely to harbour voles, protect the base of the stem as well.
Watering is the main job. Water deeply and occasionally rather than little and often: a full watering can or two per tree each week through dry spells from April onwards, more on sandy soils, until autumn rain takes over. A tree planted in November may need nothing until spring. Keep the mulch ring weed-free for two years, and hand-weed — strimmer damage to the bark is a reliable way to kill a young tree.
Skip the fertiliser in year one. If growth is genuinely poor the following spring, a light scatter of general-purpose feed is enough. Larch doesn't want richness, and excess nitrogen makes floppy growth. Don't prune, either; remove only dead or broken shoots.
Plant it properly, water it through two dry summers, keep the grass off it, and then largely leave it alone. Once established, a larch on decent soil will put on a metre or more a year, giving you fresh green in spring, gold in autumn and a clean, open structure all winter. Few garden trees repay the effort so generously.
