What advanced trees actually means, and what you get for the money - Plant Drop

What advanced trees actually means, and what you get for the money

Most trees on this site are offered in several sizes: 45L, 75L, 100L, 200L, sometimes 400L. The gap between smallest and largest is often four or five times the price. What that buys is time, but less of it than most people assume, and it comes with conditions attached.

"Advanced" is a trade description, not a regulated grade. Here is what each container size looks like on arrival, what it weighs, what you need on site to move it, and where the extra spend is justified.

What the litre number actually measures

The number is the volume of the pot or bag, not the height of the tree. It tells you how much root ball you are getting, which is the part that decides whether the tree lives, but little about what is above the soil.

Two 100L trees of different species can be nothing alike. A 100L lilly pilly is usually dense and furnished with foliage close to the ground, because that is what a screen plant is grown for. A 100L eucalypt is more often a single leader with a clear trunk and the canopy above head height. Same container, different object on the truck. For a specimen tree, ask about trunk calliper too: it is a better guide to how substantial the tree looks than pot size.

Size by size, on arrival

Container Approximate weight Handling Typical use
45L Roughly 35 to 50 kg Two people, or one with a trolley Screens, hedge lines, quantity
75L Roughly 55 to 80 kg Two people minimum, trolley preferred Screens, faster height
100L Roughly 80 to 120 kg Two or three people and a trolley Feature trees, short avenues, front gardens
200L Roughly 150 to 250 kg Bobcat or telehandler Immediate presence, formal avenues
400L Frequently 350 kg and up Machine only, clear access needed Commercial landscaping

Treat those weights as planning figures. Wet media is much heavier than dry, and a tree irrigated the morning it was loaded sits at the top of the range or above it. Hire machinery accordingly.

45L and 75L

This is the working range for most residential jobs and it fills our semi advanced tree range. A 45L is manageable: one fit person can walk it a few metres, two is safer for the plant, and it fits through a standard side gate on a trolley. The hole is an afternoon of hand digging.

For anything you are planting in quantity it is usually the size that makes sense. Screening plants knit together as they grow, and the visual gap between a 45L and a 100L screen closes within a couple of seasons. Paying four times as much per plant across twenty plants to be one season ahead is rarely the best use of a budget. Read our privacy screening range and hedging range that way.

100L

This is where a tree stops being something you carry and becomes something you handle. A 100L is a real tree on arrival, usually above head height, with a trunk you can get a hand around, and it reads as established from the street the day it goes in. It needs a hole dug wider than the root ball, and two or three people plus a trolley. Our 100L mature tree range is where most people land for a front garden feature, a courtyard tree, or a pair flanking a driveway.

200L and 400L

At 200L and above you are running a small construction job, not a gardening job. The tree cannot be lifted by people, the hole is dug by machine, and the machine has to reach the hole: access width, overhead clearance, and ground that carries the weight without bogging.

What you get is scale nothing else delivers on day one. On a commercial frontage, or a courtyard where the design depends on the tree already being there, that is worth paying for. On a suburban block with a 900 mm side gate and no crane access, it is money you cannot spend.

Why an advanced tree is not a faster small tree

A larger tree is not the same plant further along the same curve. Every container tree has all of its roots inside the pot, and after planting it has to push roots past the edge of that ball before it can feed itself. Until it does, it is running a root system sized for a nursery container under a canopy sized for a much bigger plant. The bigger the tree, the more lopsided that ratio.

Arborists work to a rough rule of about a year of establishment per 25 mm of trunk calliper. It shifts with species, climate and soil, but it points at something real. A very large tree can sit almost still for two or three years while it puts its energy underground, while a smaller tree planted the same day grows away. It is common for a well watered 45L to catch a neglected 200L of the same species inside about five years.

Advanced stock buys presence now. It does not necessarily buy a bigger tree in a decade.

Establishment risk rises with size

  • Water stress. A big canopy transpires heavily and a container sized root ball cannot keep up. This is the most common reason advanced trees fail, and it happens in the first summer.
  • Wind rock. A tall canopy on a small root ball acts as a sail, and every gust that moves the trunk tears the new roots. Large stock needs staking or underground guying from day one.
  • Handling damage. Never lift a tree by the trunk. Lift the container or root ball. A trunk lift shears roots inside the ball where you cannot see it, and symptoms may not show for months.
  • Planting depth. Too deep kills more advanced trees than pests do. The top of the root ball sits level with the surrounding soil, or slightly proud on heavy clay.
  • The bathtub effect. A bark based mix in a clay hole either drains far faster than the ground around it or fills and drowns the roots. Break up the sides of the hole rather than glazing them smooth, and backfill with the soil you dug.

Watering matters more, not less

People assume a large tree is tougher. For the first two summers the opposite is true. The advanced tree is the one that needs the hose.

Water into the root ball itself, not just the mulch ring around it. The ball is a different material from your soil and can dry out faster than the ground beside it, so a sprinkler wetting the surrounding bed may leave it bone dry. Check with a finger or a probe, not by the surface. Deep and infrequent beats light and daily: for 100L and above through a hot first summer, plan on a long slow soak several times a week, for longer than you expect. Mulch to around 75 mm, clear of the trunk.

Access, the part people plan last

Before ordering above 75L, walk the route from the street to the planting position and measure the narrowest point. Check gate width, steps, retaining walls, overhead wires, and whether the ground carries a loaded machine. If not, you have two options: a smaller size, or craneage.

One thing changes the maths: delivery is a flat $99 per order regardless of what is on the truck, and orders start at $399. Freight does not scale with tree size, so the whole difference between a 45L and a 200L sits in the tree itself.

Choosing the size for the job

  • Screen or hedge. Go smaller and plant more. Lilly pilly, westringia and Indian hawthorn in 45L close up quickly and cost far less across a long run.
  • Single feature. Where advanced stock earns its keep. A magnolia, Japanese maple or olive at 100L or 200L changes a front garden the day it goes in.
  • Avenue or driveway. Consistency beats size. Order the whole run at once in one size so the trees match, because mixed batches never quite line up. Check the advanced tree range for stock in numbers.
  • Orchard rows. Smaller sizes almost always. Young citrus and other fruit trees transplant well and bear soon enough.

Buy advanced when the effect on day one is the point, you have access for the machinery, and someone will water it through two summers. Otherwise start at semi advanced and put the difference into soil preparation and irrigation, where survival is actually decided.

Plants featured in this guide

Everything below is currently available farm-direct, with flat $99 delivery in QLD, NSW, VIC, SA, ACT and WA and a $399 minimum order.

Browse the full range: Advanced Trees · Mature Trees 100L and Over

Related ranges: Conifers and cypress.

Not sure where to start? Browse the full range index, every collection and guide in one place.

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