When you receive your Bigfoot Hybrid Willows from UPS, place them in a bucket of water for a day and then plant them after that.
If you are not ready to plant them, they can sit in water for a while. So place them somewhere cool, so they aren't trying to grow, but stay in a suspended state.
When planting your Bigfoot Willow Hybrid cuttings, make sure you plant them how they originally grew and not upside down.(thicker end goes into the ground)
Minimum planting depths for the different sized cuttings:
6ft staffs/1ft deep, 8ft stakes/2 ft deep, 12ft posts/3ft deep, 20ft poles/5ft deep
For windbreaks/screening, plantings are usually planted in the range of 3-5ft apart, depending on if planting single or multiple rows.
Make sure there is no sod or weeds growing within a 5' circle around them. If competing plants are not controlled, your Bigfoot Willow Hybrid growth will suffer and not live up to their potential of very fast growth rates.
One of the most beneficial things you can do is put a deep mulch layer around your newly planted Bigfoot willow hybrid cuttings, which helps with weed control and conserving moisture.
The larger the mulch pile on the trees, the better the moisture holds in the soil and also the soil temperature is consistent, great for rooting. Generally the best mulch to use will be the cheapest you can find or buy, as wood chips are often used, but grass clippings, composted manure, hay, straw, etc can be used for this purpose.
Between waterings, you can check if you are watering enough by putting your finger under the mulch and it should feel a little muddy under there.
Depending on the amount of rainfall and type of soil, a general guideline is to water these willow hybrids a couple times a week in their first year.
If your soil is average or below average fertility, you can also start fertilizing these fast growing trees a couple times their first summer, so they grow even faster.
By fall, your Bigfoot Hybrid Willows should be over 10' tall.
