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Saw a crew in Portland leave the root flare buried on a 3 year old maple, and it made me rethink my whole planting checklist
Walked through a park over on the east side last month and counted 4 maples with mulch piled up against the trunk like a volcano. The one with the worst girdling roots had been in the ground about 3 years, and you could already see the trunk starting to swell above the buried flare. Has anyone else started carrying a hand trowel on site visits just to check the flare before you even pull out the shovel?
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hollyl4513d ago
Reminds me of a job I did years back where the homeowner swore the tree was dying from some disease. Turned out the landscaper had buried the flare so deep the tree was basically planted like a telephone pole. We dug it out, found roots circling like a rope, and cut them back over two seasons. Tree bounced back fine. Now I keep a soil knife on me at all times, not even for planting, just for poking around trunks on walks. My wife thinks I'm nuts but she doesn't see what I see.
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