Nature Hills Gardening Community

I'm in zone 5b (Central MA).  I know the optimal time for planting trees is fall and early spring.  It being the middle of May right now, I'm thinking I may have to work hard to keep these trees alive.

I've planted them on a slight mound with an inch or two of mulch with a berm at the top of the mound (I guess it is to help retain water there.  I did it because people said to :).

 
The tree is about 5 feet tall with no leaves or anything yet.

 
Also, how long should it take before I see some form of life, like leaves or some sort of growth.

Hi Tom and welcome to our community. You should start to see the buds swelling in a week or so if the warm weather cooperates. Your fruit tree looks like it was planted in a great spot and in full sun. A word of caution, don't over water, keep the soil moist but not saturated. Thank you for sharing your photo and please keep us informed of your trees progress.

I received the other two trees in the mail today and after letting them soak in a bucket for a while I put them in the ground.

I'll head your warning about not over watering them.  A good drench once a week maybe?

 Also, the trees that came today already had buds starting to open, maybe the heat and length of time to get to me (ups doesn't deliver on saturdays so 2 days were added to the transit time.)

I took pictures of the other trees and I'll put a link to them here when I get them uploaded to my computer.
 

Tom,

I would suggest about a inch of water per week. That can vary by the heat and wind that you have each week. Just check your soil moisture a couple of times per week.  Let us know how the budding progresses.

I uploaded the pictures of the other trees to my blog.  Here is a link to the post Fruit tree pictures