[Carlito]

Good morning all 
I invested in some of the bare rooted fruit trees on offer at one of the big supermarkets yesterday (apple, cherry, pear, plum, cherry) at a fiver each. Impatience has always been a problem of mine and the ground they are going into is not quite ready. What I want to know is if the trees would benefit from being potted up for a couple of weeks, or should I just leave them in the original bags until I am ready to plant & stake them up? Cheers.

[Bing]

I think the trees would prefer being potted up

[oakridge]

Last year at this time a retired farmer friend bought 11 bare rooted top fruit trees and then realised he had nowhere to put them (don't ask).  He brought them to me where there is plenty of room but nothing prepared.   They were in two black plastic bags.  I kept the roots moist in the bags for the fortnight or so that it took me to get the land ready.  They are all doing  fine.

[Trikidiki]

If you can prepare the ground fairly quickly I would take them out of their packaging and put them somewhere shady and cover their roots with loose compost. If you pot them up they will not generate enough roots to be stable if you take them out later in the spring and you are more likely to damage any new growth if the rootball doesn't stay intact.

[Carlito]

Thanks for the advice.
I decided to get stuck in and get them planted while the ground had dried out a bit. They have gone in a raised bank of ground that runs down the length of my allotment. I think when the houses were built that back onto my plot were built, it was used as a dumping ground for all sorts of brick, slate and rubble. I had been digging up roughly ten house bricks every yard or so when I first tackled it. Hard work, but glad it's done now.