Well after reading and contributing to the thread about piling leaves around trees, today in Knoxville, I noticed that ALL the young saplings planted in the median strip of a shopping center were piled THREE FEET high and three foot wide with mulch, chopped grass and leaves. Made me want to go to every tree and kick each and every one of those piles to pieces and hear each tree gasp in relief and gratitude. I started paying closer attention as I drove down the main road in Knoxville and sure enough, almost every maintained shopping center that was planted in these beautiful trees of all varieties (including the hated Bradford pear) were piled up in these weird three foot by three foot leaf, grass and mulch volcano's. Are these people nuts???? Given time, these poor things will grow shallower roots and come a good wind sheer or intense storm or tornado, these trees will topple like overstacked blocks.

I cannot believe landscapers are so uneducated. Especially when I received a letter from UT Agriculture warning us to enlighten new gardeners and home owners against the practice to pile up around the trees like this. And this was widespread throughout the whole city as far as I could tell.....arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I finally got home and had to go down into my woods to sit and look at the perfect blanket of leaves, pine needles, pinecones and debris lying about in my fallow woods to remind myself that Mom's Nature knows how to take care of her trees.........
just my observation today after reading this thread this morning. (I assume this practice is done all over the place, since I'm in Tennessee and the original post was in another state).

madgardener slipping back into the woods now

--
Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things connect." Chief Seattle