Bare root ornamental trees

During winter, many of the stunning deciduous ornamental trees we sell at Greenhill Nursery are available in bare root form.

Buying bare root is a cost effective way of acquiring deciduous trees, saving you up to 70% when compared to our normal pricing for the same varieties in bags and pots! You’ll also save 10% when buying 10 or more.

Each season there’s a huge selection of trees available bare root including Lipstick Maples (Fairview Flame, October Glory and Autumn Blaze), silver birches, flowering apricots, plums and cherries, weeping cherries, poplars, ornamental pears, mop top robinias and more.

What varieties are available?

Download our order form below to see what’s available in season 2024.

How do I prune, plant and care for my bare root trees?

When you collect your bare root ornamental trees we’re happy to prune them for you or show you how to do it yourself, and give you any advice you need on planting and caring for them. You’re also welcome to call us on (03) 6239 6850 if you need help.

My bare root trees aren’t developing leaves. What should I do?

Provided you’ve adequately cared for your bare root ornamental trees, in most cases they’ll break dormancy in spring, but it’s not uncommon that they’ll show few signs of life until as late as December and sometimes into January. If you think a tree you’ve purchased from us has died, please don’t remove it from the ground and instead call us on (03) 6239 6850.

Why are bare root trees so much cheaper than trees in bags and pots?

Because bare root trees can be easily transported in bulk from our suppliers without the need for a container and soil during their period of winter dormancy, there are very few overheads required to keeping them alive, and we’re able to pass these savings on to you.

Outside of their dormant months, deciduous trees need soil and a container, regular watering, a home in the nursery and a lot of other love and attention by our staff to keep them healthy and happy! This adds a lot of cost to the final product.

The cheap pricing of bare root trees also indicates an assumed risk that some of your trees may not survive transplanting and will fail to grow. If you’d like a more assured product then we recommend buying trees in bags and pots. For more info, please see our bare root refund, returns and exchanges policy below.

What’s your refund, return and exchange policy for bare root trees?

Greenhill Nursery and its suppliers take great care to ensure we supply you with healthy and hardy bare root trees. In fact, each season we use the same trees in our nursery for our potting stock and our failure rates are less than 1%! However, once bare root trees leave the nursery there are many factors outside of our control that determine their chances of survival such as: the drying out of roots; delays in planting; incorrect pruning; under and over watering; amount and type of fertilisers used; soil type and condition; pests including insects and animals; air, soil and waterborne diseases; and other environmental and climatic conditions.

It’s also important to note that some varieties such as oaks are less capable of surviving bare root transplanting than others, so even if you’ve adequately cared for them a higher failure rate is to be expected.

For these reasons we don’t offer refunds, returns or exchanges, except where we’ve determined stock to be defective, or in accordance with Australian consumer law. If you experience any issues with your bare root trees, please phone us on (03) 6239 6850.