I flipped through last night to his garden makeover show, can't remember
what it's called, just as he was plunking a large tree into the ground,
which happily turned out to be a Gleditsia and not a Robinia, many of
which are dying miserably around here now, a large one near us that had
been resisting is currently nearly leafless.

He did a decent job planting, though I've never actually used one of
those watering gizmos, and people I respect hold that it's a bad idea to
have the tree circled forever with a whopping plastic tube.

But, then he wafted a little bit of mycorrhizae into the hole, and gave a
not great explanation of what it does (they are symbiotic with the roots,
providing elements and moisture in exchange for food, as I understand it
and simplifying, which of course AT was doing to).

The thing about mycorrhizae is that you need a pretty great whopping lot
of it for a tree that size, and the stuff is expensive.

I now use mycorrhizae on young transplants and medium sized plants going
in the ground, or bare root, but I'm not sure the cost would be justified
with a tree that size.

I wonder if anyone else here is using mycorrhizal fungi here. It is,
BTW, used by many maple growers now. Here's a link:

http://www.rhs.org.uk/About-Us/Busin...ensing/garden/
Rootgrow



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Gardening in Lower Normandy