How old are the plants sold?


At Pépi Berry you will only find young plants that are one year old (to a maximum of two years old).

I'll explain why :

In nature, a plant will ALWAYS begin to develop its root system before it begins to grow (in its visible part). It is mainly through its roots that it will be able to feed itself, hydrate itself and anchor itself firmly in the soil to resist wind or drought by finding water deep down. It is therefore the most important part of the plant, the one that will allow the tree to grow properly and in good health.

Therefore, the only way to guarantee that a tree (or other plant) will have a good recovery after planting is to not (or very little) impact its root system and to maintain a normal proportion between its root system and its aerial part, which must remain balanced.

Selling young plants allows, during uprooting (a term designating the act of digging up trees), the root system to be (almost) completely preserved and therefore to have minimal (or even zero) impact on the plant.
The tree or shrub thus retains all its natural proportions and can start again in the spring as if nothing had happened.


Conversely, buying an older, larger tree poses a whole host of problems:

- Root system severely impacted during uprooting, causing significant imbalance in the tree = difficult recovery.
- Much higher cost for high risk of mortality or growth stagnation.
- More difficult transport and planting (trailer, planting scythe, heavy staking, etc.).
- Requires the purchase, installation and maintenance of solid staking to compensate for the lack of anchorage in the ground in the face of greater wind resistance. Additional cost and time!
- Involves having to remove ALL fruit forming on the tree for at least 3 years to allow the tree to rebuild a correct root system (never perfect). We think we are saving time but during this time a scion very quickly catches up with this struggling tree and will produce fruit almost at the same time.
- A systematic excessive number of branches due to cultivation monitoring aimed at having a branchy rather than balanced tree, requiring severe restructuring pruning.


Furthermore, by buying a tree that is already large and older, you favor large industrial-scale producers to the detriment of small local producers who almost always choose the young plant option.
You then buy from a garden center or from so-called "buy-resell" nurseries.
Very often the rootstock is not indicated (an essential element to know) and intensive production is neither ecological nor respectful of the plant's life cycle (premature uprooting before sap flow to sell first in the season / use of chemical defoliant).
And I'm not even talking about the labeling errors or the deplorable storage of trees in these large productions... Roots unprotected for long periods, drying out in the wind and sun, taking on UV rays, ...



How big are the plants?


- The trees are sold in scions (single trunk) of at least 70cm and up to more than 1.50m.
(Size varies depending on the species, variety and rootstock used).

- Shrubs are sold in natural clumps (more or less branchy) of very variable sizes depending on the species.
From around twenty centimeters for the smallest to more than a meter for the largest.

- The vines are pruned (20/30 cm above the graft point) to guarantee good recovery.