All-too-common wisdom is to dig a wide and deep planting hole and fill it with some high proportion of amendments to surround the roots of your new plants. Let's talk that through together - because I don't think it's helpful either in the short or long-term health of you trees, shrubs or perennials.

Now I can already anticipate some push-back on this topic. No worries! Let's discuss. The main objection, I suppose, will be from people who say "my soil is too poor/clay/rocky/waterlogged/sandy/alkaline etc. so I need to improve the planting hole to give my trees a fighting chance!". I respond with this: you can't realistically solve a "whole yard" problem one hole at a time. If it's poorly drained, for instance, your rich planting hole just became an easy place for the water to collect. If it's infertile, let your roots anchor into it, and then mulch, improve, and feed appropriately from the top down to support the whole root system.

For those who may argue anecdotally along the lines of "I planted with heaps of manure in the bottom of the hole, and it always worked for me" I'll say two things: 1) I'll never try to argue against your personal experience or success - I don't have the same facts in front of me as you do, and you're really the best person to make that call, and 2) I'd suspect that a similar dressing of manure added as a top layer and watered in regularly as the plant(s) established would deliver the nutrition equally and avoid some of the potential risks.

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