Spring Don’t Do’s To Save Time and Money
With Spring just around the corner, I wanted to share a few landscaping best practices, which are contrary to what we often see, but will hopefully save you time and/or money.
Avoid over-mulching around the base of a tree: Very often, I see people pile mulch up around the trunk of the tree to keep it looking neat and tidy and prevent weeds at the base of the tree. The industry term for this is "mulch volcano".
Unfortunately, this leads to rot of the bark and root girdling. Root girdling is where the tree roots start growing up (in search of oxygen) and circle around the trunk crossing over the other roots coming out of the base of the tree trunk. After a number of years, as the circling roots get wider, they choke off the roots supplying an entire section of the tree and that section of tree dies....leading to a potentially large tree removal bill. To prevent girdling, the root flare (where the trunk widens and separates into root sections prior to entering the ground) should be left exposed, with mulch starting at the base of the root flare. This could be as little as 2-3" for a newly planted tree to 3-4' for a large oak. Tree roots take in the majority of their moisture near the dripline or edge of the canopy. It’s therefore more important mulch be applied further out than closer to the trunk. This same principal applies to the practice of building planters up around the base of an existing tree...they form a visually attractive frame for the base of the tree, but long-term will only hasten the death of the tree.
Skip Topping Crape Myrtles: The practice better known as "Crape Murder" is definitely not necessary for the health of crape myrtles and is a negative for their future health. Once the crape myrtle is topped, the tree (which can have a beautiful form when pruned correctly) will be never again be able to retain its natural form. All future growth will be the many thin twiggy stems growing up from the point at which it was topped. It will need to retrimmed every year leading to increased expense/time spent on maintaining the tree. Why do we see it? Within the landscaping industry, it is often added to the list of winter to do's as a filler (when grass isn't growing) to keep their crews busy. A second reason is that crape myrtles are often planted too close together to give the planting a fuller look sooner. If this is the reason, a better solution is to remove one (or more) and give the remaining trees more room to grow.
Don't remove last year's mulch prior to adding new mulch in the spring: It always pains me when I see people/landscapers cleaning all leaves and mulch (pine straw or wood chips) from a bed prior to adding new mulch. Allowing last year's mulch or leaves to decay provides valuable organic matter and nutrients to your soil. A lack of organic matter is a big reason why homeowners complain about having to deal with "terrible" red clay. A better option is to leave the leaves and mulch in place and let it decay. Then apply new mulch on top of it. When it comes to leaves, it's good to think about those as nature's fertilizer for the trees that dropped the leaves. This means that allowing your leaves to decay provides the trees that dropped them with the nutrients that they need for the coming years' growth.
