Why the yard workers just spent all day burying the bases of trees
and their roots in a foot of mulch (which I now have to dig off of
them)?

And while you are at it, could someone tell me why they had to
blow out the pine needles (which I always say I want left alone)
and put mulch under the pine trees instead?

These are mostly rhetorical questions. I just need to vent among
people who do know that trees do not want to have their roots
buried, nor do they want mulch going a foot up their trunks....

--
Jean B., 12 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Jean B. wrote:

Why the yard workers just spent all day burying the bases of trees
and their roots in a foot of mulch (which I now have to dig off of
them)?

And while you are at it, could someone tell me why they had to
blow out the pine needles (which I always say I want left alone)
and put mulch under the pine trees instead?

These are mostly rhetorical questions. I just need to vent among
people who do know that trees do not want to have their roots
buried, nor do they want mulch going a foot up their trunks....


You aren't the only one complaining.

http://www.richsoil.com/lawn/god.html

On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 20:53:47 -0400, "Jean B." typed
these words:

Why the yard workers just spent all day burying the bases of trees
and their roots in a foot of mulch (which I now have to dig off of
them)?

And while you are at it, could someone tell me why they had to
blow out the pine needles (which I always say I want left alone)
and put mulch under the pine trees instead?

These are mostly rhetorical questions. I just need to vent among
people who do know that trees do not want to have their roots
buried, nor do they want mulch going a foot up their trunks....


Fancy meeting you here. Are you stalking me? Ahem... "Sir Gardener,
why do you...?" ;-)

Julie


http://www.bobsloansampler.com/

Bearskin to Holly Fork: Stories from Appalachia
by Bob Sloan ISBN: 1-893239-21-7

Tono wrote:

Jean B. wrote:

Why the yard workers just spent all day burying the bases of trees
and their roots in a foot of mulch (which I now have to dig off of
them)?

And while you are at it, could someone tell me why they had to
blow out the pine needles (which I always say I want left alone)
and put mulch under the pine trees instead?

These are mostly rhetorical questions. I just need to vent among
people who do know that trees do not want to have their roots
buried, nor do they want mulch going a foot up their trunks....

You aren't the only one complaining.

http://www.richsoil.com/lawn/god.html

Yup! I love that--and I agree with it too. Oh well, I guess I
have a lot of mulch to move to other places.
--
Jean B., 12 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Julie Sloan wrote:

On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 20:53:47 -0400, "Jean B." typed
these words:

Why the yard workers just spent all day burying the bases of trees
and their roots in a foot of mulch (which I now have to dig off of
them)?

And while you are at it, could someone tell me why they had to
blow out the pine needles (which I always say I want left alone)
and put mulch under the pine trees instead?

These are mostly rhetorical questions. I just need to vent among
people who do know that trees do not want to have their roots
buried, nor do they want mulch going a foot up their trunks....

Fancy meeting you here. Are you stalking me? Ahem... "Sir Gardener,
why do you...?" ;-)

Julie

I think I preceded you. I just don't post much here!

Jean B., 12 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts, USA

On Sun, 29 Jun 2003 09:31:58 -0400, "Jean B." typed
these words:

Julie Sloan wrote:

On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 20:53:47 -0400, "Jean B." typed
these words:
snip

Fancy meeting you here. Are you stalking me? Ahem... "Sir Gardener,
why do you...?" ;-)

Julie

I think I preceded you. I just don't post much here!


The same back at you! :-) My first post here was 1998. Do I win?
Huh? Huh? Do I? Do I?

http://www.bobsloansampler.com/

Bearskin to Holly Fork: Stories from Appalachia
by Bob Sloan ISBN: 1-893239-21-7

They seem to do it here, too, in Virginia. I had read somewhere a long time ago...(or maybe I saw it on The Victory Garden) that the "flare" of the tree trunk should not be covered as it stresses the tree.


"Jean B." wrote in message ...
Why the yard workers just spent all day burying the bases of trees
and their roots in a foot of mulch (which I now have to dig off of
them)?

And while you are at it, could someone tell me why they had to
blow out the pine needles (which I always say I want left alone)
and put mulch under the pine trees instead?

These are mostly rhetorical questions. I just need to vent among
people who do know that trees do not want to have their roots
buried, nor do they want mulch going a foot up their trunks....

--
Jean B., 12 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts, USA

"Jean B." wrote
Why the yard workers just spent all day burying the bases of trees
and their roots in a foot of mulch (which I now have to dig off of
them)?

Because your "yard workers" are not horticulturists. Or not in the
employ of a firm that will give its workers precise instructions. Nor
did you give them (the workers) precise instructions about what you
wanted to be done and how.

And while you are at it, could someone tell me why they had to
blow out the pine needles (which I always say I want left alone)
and put mulch under the pine trees instead?

Because you didn't supervise the 'yard workers' and make this clear,
or make it *luminously* clear (and perhaps written into a contract)
with whatever supervisory personnel was involved.

These are mostly rhetorical questions. I just need to vent among
people who do know that trees do not want to have their roots
buried, nor do they want mulch going a foot up their trunks....

Good news. Mulch around tree trunks is harmful to only a few species.
Bad news. If you paid for a foot of mulch to be deposited in all
mulchable areas, you probably wasted a lot of money. 3-4 inches is a
common depth. Unless, of course, you have no plants at all, and simply
want tidy areas of mulch.

Unsupervised landscape projects often result in nasty surprises. In
spite of "they *should* know...", they don't. The landlord of my
cottage employed a gardener who liked me. One day he said he'd brought
some carnation plants for me as a special treat. How nice. Except that
there wasn't really a planting area with enough sun... Too late I
recalled the one sunny spot where I'd been nurturing a flowering
ginger, then in hopeful and plentiful bud. Gone, gone, gone. Replaced
by straggly ol' carnations that never produced a bloom.

You gotta make a red mulch volcanoe around each tree otherwise your
landscape can't look like a Wal-Mart parking lot.
It sounds like you have lawn mowers not landscapers.

Julie Sloan wrote:

On Sun, 29 Jun 2003 09:31:58 -0400, "Jean B." typed
these words:

Julie Sloan wrote:

On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 20:53:47 -0400, "Jean B." typed
these words:
snip

Fancy meeting you here. Are you stalking me? Ahem... "Sir Gardener,
why do you...?" ;-)

Julie

I think I preceded you. I just don't post much here!

The same back at you! :-) My first post here was 1998. Do I win?
Huh? Huh? Do I? Do I?


I don't know. I'd have to google, but I suspect that you were
here first then. Of course, I wouldn't have recognized you from
somewhere else then though.

--
Jean B., 12 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Frogleg wrote:

"Jean B." wrote
Why the yard workers just spent all day burying the bases of trees
and their roots in a foot of mulch (which I now have to dig off of
them)?

Because your "yard workers" are not horticulturists. Or not in the
employ of a firm that will give its workers precise instructions. Nor
did you give them (the workers) precise instructions about what you
wanted to be done and how.

And while you are at it, could someone tell me why they had to
blow out the pine needles (which I always say I want left alone)
and put mulch under the pine trees instead?

Because you didn't supervise the 'yard workers' and make this clear,
or make it *luminously* clear (and perhaps written into a contract)
with whatever supervisory personnel was involved.

These are mostly rhetorical questions. I just need to vent among
people who do know that trees do not want to have their roots
buried, nor do they want mulch going a foot up their trunks....

Good news. Mulch around tree trunks is harmful to only a few species.
Bad news. If you paid for a foot of mulch to be deposited in all
mulchable areas, you probably wasted a lot of money. 3-4 inches is a
common depth. Unless, of course, you have no plants at all, and simply
want tidy areas of mulch.

Unsupervised landscape projects often result in nasty surprises. In
spite of "they *should* know...", they don't. The landlord of my
cottage employed a gardener who liked me. One day he said he'd brought
some carnation plants for me as a special treat. How nice. Except that
there wasn't really a planting area with enough sun... Too late I
recalled the one sunny spot where I'd been nurturing a flowering
ginger, then in hopeful and plentiful bud. Gone, gone, gone. Replaced
by straggly ol' carnations that never produced a bloom.

Oh, I have tried to tell them numerous times what I want. Part of
the problem is that a) the head of the company speaks virtually NO
English, and b) the crew's English is minimal at best. I think
part of my solution is to find an outfit that speaks enough
English, so I can communicate my desires, and also one that
actually knows that it is doing. I have found such a company (I
think), but I have to wait for an opening.
--
Jean B., 12 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Beecrofter wrote:

You gotta make a red mulch volcanoe around each tree otherwise your
landscape can't look like a Wal-Mart parking lot.
It sounds like you have lawn mowers not landscapers.

Yes, that is sort-of true. My experience with landscapers has
also not been wonderful though.
--
Jean B., 12 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts, USA

On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 20:20:19 -0400, "Jean B." wrote:

Oh, I have tried to tell them numerous times what I want. Part of
the problem is that a) the head of the company speaks virtually NO
English, and b) the crew's English is minimal at best. I think
part of my solution is to find an outfit that speaks enough
English, so I can communicate my desires, and also one that
actually knows that it is doing. I have found such a company (I
think), but I have to wait for an opening.

I feel your pain. :-) My ginger-destroyer was Japanese -- a non-PC
guarantee of expert plant knowledge in California.:-) It's hard for
anyone to envision all the horrible things that may happen with Hired
Help. I keep learning in retrospect, not planning in advance. Who
thinks to tell the roofers not to drop old material onto blooming
annuals? Or heavy trucks not to plow through tree branches? It
requires a lot of imagination to plot out everything that might go
wrong. And (the generic) we seem to think, for example, brick-layers
know something about the physics of walls and erosion. Nope. Not
often.

Movers carefully pack ashtrays full of cigarette butts, and wrap Irish
crystal in a single sheet of newspaper. Painters paint. Everything.
Plumbers walk from sewer overflo through (carpeted) livingrooms.
They're all doing their jobs. Good luck with the English-speaking
company. Get it in writing. :-)