Water Is Not Enough
Trees Will Not Grow in Some Places Without Serious Help
Plant a tree in a suburban lawn, and you are likely to find out just how hostile an environment it can be for a tree. Soil conditions are brutal for tree roots in suburban lawns. The top inch or so may have enough organic life, water and oxygen to support plant and turf roots, but deeper levels are devoid of life. So trees are forced to grow their roots at shallow depths that will not promote mature tree growth.
The problem is the assumption that more water will help the situation. The truth is that, for some trees, water is not enough.
This tree is watered daily by an automatic irrigation system. Despite the abundance of water, it is stressed and losing leaves in July.
What the roots of this tree are really lacking is oxygen. Rootwells installed at the perimeter of the planting pit would have allowed the tree’s roots to have access to the oxygen that it needs.
Proper mulching techniques and soil aeration can mean the difference between life and death for many trees in the built environment.
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More About Soil Remediation
Good Tree Root Health: Oxygen. — In the tips of the roots where absorption takes place, oxygen is critical to root life.
Good Tree Root Health and Microbes. — The forest floor provides an ideal environment for their propagation, and they are constantly cycling through the soil food web. In contrast, urban and suburban soil can be seriously lacking in these microbes.
Root Aeration Tubes — There are numerous options for root aeration tubes. A popular design involves PVC plastic pipes.
Rootwell Products — The Rootwell Products, direct-to-root system has been engineered to permanently enhance a tree's natural ability to absorb oxygen, water, and nutrients.
Soil Compaction — In the built environment where most of us live, soil compaction is a necessity.
Soil Composition — When we consider the make-up of soil we are looking at the percentages of three different components, sand, clay, and silt.
Soil Food Web — What horticulturists and soil scientists refer to as the soil food web is an intricate network of life forms.
Soil Structure — Soil structure essentially refers to the amount of macropores in the soil.
Tree Root Health: Watering Trees. — What we see in lawns that are irrigated conventionally is tree roots growing at or near the surface in the only space that they can live.
Trees Suffering From Drought? — Take a walk in an established forest in this area, and you will see that the problem is not really the drought.
Water Is Not Enough — This tree is watered daily by an automatic irrigation system. Despite the abundance of water, it is stressed and losing leaves in July.
Why is That Tree Not Growing? — Why is it that the trees in some landscapes never seem to grow past the half-way point of their mature size?
