Tree & Shrub Planting in Dallas-Fort Worth

$250 to $900 per tree installed for typical residential sizes, and the number is driven mostly by caliper. Shrubs run $45 to $150 each depending on container size.

Installed means delivered, planted at correct depth, backfilled, mulched, and watered in. Larger stock is not automatically better, and a 30-gallon tree very often overtakes a 65-gallon one within four years because it establishes faster.

Two reasons, and both happen on planting day.

Planted too deep. This is the big one. The root flare, the point where the trunk widens into the roots, has to be visible at the soil surface. Nurseries frequently ship stock with the flare already buried in the container, so planting the root ball level with grade buries it further. A buried flare girdles the trunk over several years and the tree dies slowly enough that nobody connects the cause.

Wrong species for clay. North Texas soil is heavy, alkaline, and it swells and shrinks with moisture. Species that thrive in East Texas acid soil get iron chlorosis here and yellow out. Silver maple, pin oak, sweetgum, and river birch are all commonly sold in DFW and all commonly struggle in it.

Shade trees that do reliably well here: cedar elm, Shumard red oak, chinquapin oak, bur oak, live oak, Texas red oak, lacebark elm, and Chinese pistache.

Ornamentals: crape myrtle, Mexican plum, redbud, desert willow, vitex, and yaupon holly.

Shrubs: dwarf yaupon, Nellie R. Stevens holly, abelia, rosemary, salvia greggii, and nandina used as a cane-pruned plant rather than a sheared ball.

October through March. Fall is best of all.

Planting into cool soil gives roots months to establish before the first summer, which is the thing that kills newly planted stock here. A tree planted in October has two full growing seasons of root development before it faces a July. The same tree planted in May has about six weeks.

Summer planting is possible and we do it, but it needs committed watering and the failure rate is higher no matter who plants it.

More than an irrigation system provides, and for longer than most people expect.

A new tree wants deep watering at the root ball, roughly 10 to 15 gallons per inch of trunk caliper, twice a week through the first summer, tapering through the second year. Lawn irrigation does not reach the root ball of a new tree; it wets the top few inches over a wide area, which is the opposite of what you want.

If it declined slowly over years rather than failing in one season, the odds are it was planted too deep. See the full diagnostic walkthrough for how to check the root flare and what the other common causes look like.

We plant across Frisco, Plano, McKinney, Allen, and Flower Mound. Planting is usually part of a larger landscape installation or design.