I am usually among them. Time seems to race from October through December and I am only coming to my senses again in January and looking around at what never made it into the ground and might benefit from the insulating effects of soil. Though it’s not ideal, we rarely do ‘ideal’ around here, preferring to rely on ‘Will it work?’ instead. Barring your zone marginal plants such as magnolia and crepe myrtle, it usually does.

Consequently, it occurred to me that the topic of planting invites discussion on the topic of roots. And even if you’re not a hard-core, gird-your-loins gardener, the spring will be here before we blink, and choices will need to be made when staring at the girdled mess of a pot-bound plant.

After gardening for a fair amount of time, one starts to realize that roots can be as distinctive as the plants they support. Most would never confuse the rhizome of an iris for that of a canna –but would they recognize the thin, fleshy fingers of clematis or the shallow, threadlike network of rhododendron roots? With time, this knowledge becomes instinctive, not to mention extremely useful. It stops the trowel mid-thrust during the desolate anonymity of the winter garden and prevents accidental death by stupidity. A dead looking plant is usually thriving down below.

But in order to thrive, its roots must be given a fighting chance, and whether it's through a misguided effort to be gentle or a hurried effort to get on with other chores in the garden, they rarely are. Heed my words – the mistakes made during the crucial time of planting will not go unpunished.

When we moved into our last house, there wasn’t much in the way of landscape. Among the three plants that stood in the front yard was a golden euonymus planted near an old stump and about the size of a respectable three-gallon nursery specimen.

I had great plans for that area. Brick patios would eventually be constructed so that al fresco meals could be enjoyed as we watched the sun setting over the Virginia ridge-line. The euonymus – golden or otherwise – simply had to go. But I did not sign its death warrant. We were too strapped for cash to throw out a perfectly good shrub, and there were beds to be filled. I prepared a new site in the front border and dug it up.

To my surprise, the roots looked as if they had come out of a nursery pot that very week (though I was later informed that it had been planted four years before). They were bound and twisted upon each other, and judging from the soil around them, the merest sliver of a hole had been dug into the soil to wedge this poor specimen 'twixt rock and clay. Due to years in a plastic pot, then further years in an earthen one, its growth had stagnated. Had it not been one of the world's most obstinate plants, no doubt it would have died a quiet death, resigned to its fate. I pulled the roots apart, cut some of the larger, girdled specimens and gave it a new home.

One year later, with a large hole, a good mix of compost and subsoil, and a generous hose, it had doubled in size. Five years later, it was a perfect six-foot specimen. Before we left that house, its roots were not only happy, they were rapturous –not merely wrapped around each other for comfort.

For centuries, farmers and fishwives have been saying (with subtle variations in currency) "Don't dig a dollar hole for a five-dollar plant." It's so tempting to disregard this advice when the soil you are hewing is made of concrete and the mercury is plunging. But you disregard it to your peril.

Dig a hole twice the width of your plant. I have also heard whispers of setting it on undisturbed earth to prevent sinking later, but I usually add at least a couple inches of something friable mixed with native soil. However, let’s discuss that idea of "something friable."

Filling that hole with a straight mix of gorgeous, black crumbly compost is the equivalent of doing your child's laundry during his teen years then expecting him to find a Laundromat when he's eighteen. Trust me he won't bother and neither will the plant. Instead, give it a hefty amount of the soil with which it will be faced in a year's time mixed with some good compost and a bit of bone meal. Moving beyond that mix won't be as much of a shock for it.

And one last thing about the roots themselves. Most of the time they need a good rough hand at planting time, but it is hard to go wrong if you remember the following: if they are fleshy, be fastidious; if they are fibrous, be firm. Using a hose to tease roots away from soil and each other can often help the process, just make sure that they are well-watered after planting to remove any air pockets you might have inadvertently created. I like to half-fill the hole, water deeply, and when the water has disappeared, fill it up with soil and water again.

If you are particularly rough on the roots, don't expect them to then support the original size of the plant. Some judicious pruning on the top will limit the amount of foliage those newly tousled roots must try to support. Pay now or pay later - the choice is yours.