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Kay Lancaster · 28-09-2006, 10:40 PM posted to rec.gardens

On 27 Sep 2006 19:47:05 -0700, wrote:
I have an eight year old Russian Olive that has fallen over twice in
the past two years.
It literally ended up lying on the ground. It was lifted upright twice
as well.

The probable reason that it has fallen over is because its roots system
is very poor.
Ie. instead of growing vertically they have grown horizontally. This is
likely because there is a clay or hard deposit right below its roots.

Dig a better hole (through the hardpan) and plant a new tree. Russian
olives are not, imho, one of the finer landscape trees out there, unless
you're dealing with really rugged conditions. This one has been badly
stressed, and is unlikely to grow as well as a freshly planted one
in a properly dug hole.

Two stories for you:
When I was a kid in the midwest, we used to get windstorms on a fairly
regular basis. The subdivision builder had planted a bunch of
siberian elms (Ulmus pumila) because they grew fast. Not a wonderful
species... weak-wooded, poor root structure. I had one right
outside my bedroom window, and one night the tree came right through
to visit me, pinning me to the bed. Luckily, the big branches were
on either side of me, and I wasn't hurt, but it didn't help me trust
trees for many, many years.

The other is more recent: in 1987, a windstorm at Kew, England, did an
amazing amount of damage, knocking over hundreds of mature trees of
many species. The first thing they noticed was that most were very
shallowly rooted... they'd been planted over a hardpan and never
developed enough anchorage to withstand a heavy wind. .

Long and short: big trees on hardpan are big trouble.

BTW: here's the mural made from wood of the 800+ trees that went
down in the Kew windstorm:
http://travel.designwest.com//Englan...es/Kew1-07.jpg