Why do you say fruit trees should be planted in the winter?

Hi Sally, yes it might seem surprising but winter really is the best time to plant fruit trees. The reason is at that time of year they are dormant, and actually it is the cold weather that makes them dormant. That means they are no longer growing, so it is the ideal time to transplant them without damaging or stressing them. They will wake up in the spring in their new home and start growing again.

Conversely, summer is the worst time because that is when the trees should be growing at the maximum rate, and transplanting them would severely check their growth.

In practice you can safely transplant pot-grown trees any time between September and April, as they won't be actively growing during that time. With bare-root trees the best time is December - February.