They may look uninspiring, bare-branched and stand barely as tall as the bobcat that carts them around the nursery, but deciduous trees have a big future.
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As the end of winter nears, Canberra's dormant trees – and gardeners – are getting ready to spring back to life.
Nurseries are expecting customers this weekend to be buying up on trees, which will be easier to plant because of their dormant state.
The city's street gardeners will also be busy, planting 600 deciduous trees across 69 suburbs.
The manager of policy, planning and contracts at Territory and Municipal Services, Luke Bulkeley, said the trees at Yarralumla Nursery would mainly go to the Gungahlin suburbs of Crace, Forde and Franklin.
"The new planting are almost all exotic deciduous species, including oaks, ashes, flowering cherries, flowering pears and Chinese elms," Mr Bulkeley said.
The nursery has a 100-year history of selecting trees to suit Canberra's landscape and climate.
The winter planting program is set to finish within the next week and will also help replace the trees that have been removed due to disease, hazard or age. A native tree planting program will follow in October, Mr Bulkeley said.
For backyard gardners, Don Franklin from the Garden Plant Nursery said the next few weeks should be spent preparing the soil for the "splash of colour" that spring will bring.
Tegan Redman from the Garden in Dickson recommended the use of good compost, organic matter and fertiliser to combat Canberra's clay soil.
She said Canberra gardeners had to be mindful there were still plenty of potential frosty mornings ahead and that all spring and summer stock would not be available until later in the year.
"As we're in between seasons at the moment, we're half way between pansies and petunias," she said. "Within the next few months we'll be getting in all our petunias, and then tomatoes and all the good summer veggies – capsicums and chillies.
"This spring there's a few new releases. There's a nice magnolia called cream fairy, there's a sun tolerant daphne called spring pink and they have been fairly popular.
"[For now] any leafy greens are good to keep going until it warms up enough for all your summer veggies."
