The Helpful Gardener
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Ch. 21 Maintaining Trees, Shrubs, and Perennials

A lot of ground covered in a single chapter; tough to do it all justice in such a brief space. But Jeff does an admirable job (as he has throughout the book) of turning a complex subject into an easily understood concept. All of the previous chapters come into play here, as we see how mycorrhizae, fungal composts and the rest of the soil food web all come together to nourish these mainstays of our landscape...

HG

garden5
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I kind of had a feeling about what was going to be coming with this discussion. However, this section brought an interesting fact to light. That is, most trees don't have the appropriately sized beds around them. According to this book, a bed should be as large as the diameter of the canopy of the tree. I suppose this rule doesn't have to be adhered to too strictly. After all, if this were the case, there'd be quite a few folks who'd barely have any kind of a yard :lol:. Perahps this will make us consider buying dwarf trees if we want to maintain a fair-sized patch of grass in our lawns :wink:.

Also, the text talks about how unfavorable compact soil is for trees and scrubs. Perhaps that age-old advice about tamping the soil immediately around the root-ball right after planting is a bit incorrect?

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Two differnet things, compaction and tamping. The biggest killer of new trees is air pockets around roots, drying them out. If we are using a good soil with lots of biology, especially fungi, we won't have to worry about compaction anyway (don't forget our ACT decompacts as it establishes a new SFW).

And you don't have to adhere strictly to the rules about trees and grass; heck, you can pave right up to the trunk if you want. But grass and trees don't mix in the wild for a reason; you get one or the other (usually, and before we talk about savannah or forest sedges, I am generalizing). Those two want different things. So why set them against each other?

HG

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rainbowgardener
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They want different things but they are drawing from different regions of soil. Most lawn turf only has roots a few inches deep. The trees have roots a few to many feet deep. Can't we assume that the deep soil may have different composition and different micro-organisms than the surface soil?

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OK, that clarify things a lot, HG. I guess that organic, soil food web friendly soils will become less compacted over time, as opposed to soils that are improperly managed.

RBG, you pose good points, as well.

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RBG, while the rhizosperes of the different plants will certainly influence the soils around them, and there are indeed different soils at different levels, even the tree is doing most of it's FEEDING in the top 1 foot of soil (which is why soil compaction kills trees as fast as it kills lawns).

They are incompatible plants, period. Trying to grow grass right up to the trunk of the tree is doing neither plant a favor. The tree will be much happier with mulch and woodland plantings that also favor fungal soils. The grass will be much happier out in the sun...

HG

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I've experienced this first hand. I was trying to plant some things a few yards from a big old tree and couldn't jam a shovel in 4 inches without hitting roots.

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Our weeping cherry tree has a root that grew along the concrete driveway up to the house just below the downspouts and is now snaking along a flower bed sending up waterspouts.

When the guys came to run the Verizon FiOS cable under the driveway, I was able to see that the concrete slab stopped the root, then instead of going down just a few inches deeper, it had turned and followed the edge of the slab, though I suspect part of it had to do with the higher moisture levels there. I think this is how the tree is surviving our yearly summer drought.

The tree, BTW, was correctly planted (unlike in the foundation bed that I see in many new constructions) -- at least 20 feet away from the house, but it's surrounded by lawn. After years of neglect, I only recently (a few years ago) enlarged it's mulch zone.

BTW --OT, but I suppose Verizon contracts such jobs out. These particular guys were proper landscapers, not like the yahoos you get more often than not: I pointed out the garden plantings and areas I have planned for future trees, and also asked them to be careful of the cherry tree roots. They did a great job, even with the cable trench they dug the full length of our front yard, and you couldn't tell the ground had been disturbed 3days later.

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I've seen a Japanese maple do the same thing in a flower bed. The shallow root was sending up suckers probably 5 yds. away from the tree.

Did the workers hydro-seed the trench or just lay down sod?



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