It means just what the term describes – that the roots are bare and are not contained in any soil. The plant is in a dormant state. It comes to life upon contact with soil again once re-planted. We have a specially designed plant box to ship plants to you in the soil they were grown in at our nursery. This helps reduce shock to the plant when you transplant it to your garden or orchard. However sometimes the plant might need to be sent to you with bare roots if the size of the plants are too big to fit in our largest size box available. Our boxes can fit up to a size PB18 bag however sometimes we might still need to use bare rooted or soil-less options in order to deliver the plants to you. This option will be discussed with you beforehand.