Why did my tree die? Reason #2
/Last week on the Garden Show with Sally Spillane, Victoria went on a passionate rant about landscape cloth—you can read the summary of that conversation here.
But Sally and Victoria also talked about the evils of burlap and tree cages. Similar to landscape cloth, they will choke a plant if left on during the planting process.
You ALWAYS remove burlap and any type of plastic container, plastic ring or metal cage when panting!
If you’re landscaper is leaving anything on the balls of your trees or the roots of your plants when planting, they are WRONG!
Some people say the burlap disintegrates, but it takes 10 years! The trunk of a tree or the base of a shrub (not to mention the roots) grow MUCH faster than that and you will literally be strangling your your investment.
Plus the burlap is a barrier to the available water in the soil.
Anyone saying that “disturbing the root ball” is worse that leaving the cage, hasn’t stuck around long enough to see the devastating effects of a caged root system five, ten, or fifteen years down the road. The Victoria Gardens’ Landscaping Division will start a new project and remove a tree that has died . We often see it has a girdled root—where the roots have circled cage and basically strangled itself.
The lifespan of a tree can be eighty years, one hundred years, one hundred and fifty years—but you have to give it a good start when you plant it. Remove all cages or barriers so the roots can integrate into the surrounding native soil as fast as possible.