patriciareed•20d agoMost Upvoted

That chat with the old arborist about root flares really got me thinking

I was talking to a 60 year retired tree guy at the coffee shop Tuesday and he said 90 percent of the trees he sees dying are planted too deep, and I realized I've been guilty of missing that on my own jobs for years.

3 comments

3 Comments

angela_grant20d ago

90 percent of the trees he sees dying are planted too deep" - well that's just a great way to make me feel real smart about the maple I planted last spring. I literally dug a hole, dropped the tree in, and patted the dirt down like I was making a mud pie. Didn't even know what a root flare was until I watched a YouTube video last month and realized my tree is basically buried up to its neck in a dirt coffin. Guess I'll be digging that thing back up this weekend, which should be fun since it's now three feet tall and I'm not exactly a professional excavator.

lane.eric20d ago

Alright but hold on, I see it a little different. You can absolutely save that tree without digging it up completely like you're doing archaeology. Just take a trowel or even a garden fork and gently scrape away the top layers of soil around the trunk until you hit that root flare. It might take ten minutes and you don't have to disturb the whole root ball. I did this with a crabapple I planted two years ago that was sunk too deep, and it's been fine ever since. The roots aren't going to instantly die from being a little deeper for a year, they just need air moving around the trunk base now. Way easier than trying to lift a three foot tree without breaking every skinny root.

grant_allen8519d ago

Man I feel your pain, did the exact same thing to a dogwood last year and felt like an idiot.

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