Planted too deeply and volcano mulch

and finally a fairly recent survey piece. this one was a real disappointment--1,380 RCX's done, but apparently just to look not prune or otherwise act. did i read that right?? then at the end a lack of data on pruning is cited as a reason for the baseless and irresponsible advice to cut down every tree >50% girdled.
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That this bullspit was approved for publication at Harvard shows the need for academics to communicate with field arborists and vice versa. There seems to be a distinct aversion by some academics to getting hands dirty, and offering practical guidance.
 

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ah the old volcano of mulch. i guess people think more mulch = more plant food and a healthier tree. i try and educate my clients that 1-2 inches thick of wood chips mulch around the root plate is all that is needed in young trees and 3-4 for adults mature trees. i also teach to keep the mulch at least 6-12 inches away from the trunk. we have been clearing the soil every 4-6 years around the roots and re mulching with fresh stuff. we have done this with our landscaping business for 20 years and have some of the most beautiful and well maintained trees on maui. verry good results i might add
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I've heard the saturated fine textured root ball over coarse textured native soil as a "perched water table" IIRC.

Another benefit of bare-root planting.

A good way to understand this is putting a sponge on top of gravel. You can keep adding water to the sponge until it is saturated, then the water will move to the gravel.

This might have been from the older ISA CA study guide. It seemed to have been from some reference/ training text like that.
 
So I assume that the primary root system would regain dominance in the situation that the secondary root system is removed? (That is to my understanding if it hasn't rotted yet). Would the approach that we take to large co-dominant stems work in a situation with large adventitious SGRs? Where the secondary root system be subordinated until the tree has compensated enough for the loss that the final cuts can be made at the stem?
 
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And I guess this HO got his money's worth from his 'landscrapers'

Mulch piles (1) by altacal, on Flickr

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Question ...

Did you go to these trees, move the mulch aside, and check to see if they did not plant them a bit higher.

Or did you gauge the mulch and it was really that deep?
 
I work at a park and just had a volunteer tree planting with a girl scout troop. It was a great opportunity to teach proper tree planting and proper mulching techniques to the girls while they're young as well as teaching the parents. Over all a great success. I hope to do more of our plantings with volunteers in the future for a dual purpose to a.) get free labor and b.) teach people proper tree planting techniques. Education is the only way we can get rid of these poor planting techniques and make them taboo to general society.
 
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Question ...

Did you go to these trees, move the mulch aside, and check to see if they did not plant them a bit higher.

Or did you gauge the mulch and it was really that deep?

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Just drove by. This was not our customer and we didn't have any business being on their property. But based on what we could see of the other trees on the property it was almost assuredly what Tom suggested - too much mulch ordered and none of it was going to be shovelled back in the truck.
The tree in the foreground had a cone of mulch piled from the edge of the planting circle right up to the bottom of the limbed uo trunk. Even if the tree was planted a bit higher it could not be a foot above the surrounding grass.

And tx for the resources Guy.
 
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[ QUOTE ]
Question ...

Did you go to these trees, move the mulch aside, and check to see if they did not plant them a bit higher.

Or did you gauge the mulch and it was really that deep?

[/ QUOTE ]

Just drove by. This was not our customer and we didn't have any business being on their property. But based on what we could see of the other trees on the property it was almost assuredly what Tom suggested - too much mulch ordered and none of it was going to be shovelled back in the truck.
The tree in the foreground had a cone of mulch piled from the edge of the planting circle right up to the bottom of the limbed uo trunk. Even if the tree was planted a bit higher it could not be a foot above the surrounding grass.

And tx for the resources Guy.

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Our yard has a continual supply of bark mulch, because I never over-apply. There are countless times where I have workers shovel an extra cubic yard into my trailer to remove from the work site.

I think that the reason some small yards have too much grass and too small of beds is for similar reason. Sod comes in 500 square feet minimum, and they don't want to haul away sod. So they make the beds tiny to reduce costs and hauling at the expense of design and adequate space for plant growth.
 
re teh Arnoldia piece, I harassed the autho, who has done a lot of good work in other areas. He dodged my spitballs and very kindly replied

The 1380 trees were part of a multi-community, non-destructive "root collar exam" procedure of the most commonly planted tree species in the upper Midwest. Since they were not in our research fields and were randomly located on boulevards, schools, parks and private properties, the agreement was that we would condition rate the trees, then perform the root collar exams and collect the data with no harm done to the trees. The separate 360 controlled tree study in our research nursery did involve planting liners (4-6 foot unbranched) of sugar maples and littleleaf lindens. Obviously, these were root-pruned when they were harvested from the wholesale nursery and delivered to us.

The other planting depth/dysfunctional root study referred to in the article involved 1.25-1.5 inch caliper, nursery-grown, bare-rooted trees, so those had been root-pruned two times before we received them and planted them at four different depths in containers. The 1,500+ trees that had root collar exams and data collected following wind loading events were even more random: parks, boulevards, front yards, back yards, schools, businesses. Since all of them were landscape trees rather than woodland trees, it would have to be assumed they were root pruned at some point.

One other (unmentioned study) is ongoing on the Twin Cities Campus. To date, we have approximately 600 landscape trees on the three campuses that received root collar exams and subsequent "treatments." Treatments have ranged from removing encircling roots, to just removing the soil piled against the trunk to removal of slightly to moderately to severely compressing stem girdling roots, regardless of how much of the stem circumference was compressed. This is the only research project that doesn't have "controls" per se because it wasn't designed. Rather than a statistically accurate percentage of trees in the study, every tree that had its stem buried by 1" or more of soil is part of the study.

It also includes a broad range of sizes (newly planted 1.75 inch caliper to 24"+ d.b.h.) and species (Acer to Ulmus). Because of that, there are relatively few replications for certain species (e.g. only two Phellodendron) and sizes within species. We started this in 2000. Maybe in another 5-10 years, there will be enough evidence to write something on treatments with any confidence for a variety of species.

As of this writing, maples are not encouraging. Ash are, but they're getting eaten by EAB. Hackberries recover well but are plagued with buttress rot within a few years if the wounds are substantial. Littleleaf lindens have at least as many problems with stem girdling suckers as they do with stem girdling roots when buried too deeply. One issue replaces the next."

So they are indeed getting their hands dirty in MN, but the pace is maddeningly slow, fpr this oldster anyway.
 
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