HOW THE PLANT INDUSTRY 'SIZES' PLANTS

Balled and Burlapped plants
('B&B' is the lingo)

These nursery standards are applied to trees, shrubs, containerized plants and other nursery stock so that nurseries, garden centers, landscapers and homeowners have a standardized guide for trading in green goods and plant materials. These official standards often provide planting specifications as well.
  
Inches are still used for plant standards in the United States, while the metric system is used elsewhere. For our examples we have used inches and feet as the basis of measurements. These charts are only provided to give the novice gardener some idea of what nursery standards look like, and are greatly simplified when compared to official guides.
  

EXAMPLES OF SHADE TREE CALIPER & HEIGHT

Caliper of
Tree Trunk

Average Tree
Height

'Drum laced' root ball

  
  

EXAMPLES OF EARTH BALL STANDARDS

Caliper of
Tree Trunk

Minimum Diameter
Root Ball

Tree spades used for digging trees in the field.
The front spade is on a hinged frame so the spades can be moved in around a tree trunk, and then closed and centered around the desired tree. Hydraulic cylinders force the spades down through the earth and also cut the tree's roots. Various sized tree spades are available for the front of a skid steer loader for digging various root ball diameters. Root balls around 28 to 32 inches in diameter seem to be the most common sizes at tree nurseries.

TREE TERMINOLOGY

Caliper
Diameter of the trunk measured 6 inches above the ground (up to and including 4 inch caliper size), and 12 inches above the ground for larger sizes.
  

  
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Plant names

Plant preferences

Selecting the right tree

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