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Are your trees dying?

by Donna Balzer | Sep 26, 2016 | Landscaping Tips, PLANTS & DESIGN, Trees & Shrubs | 0 comments

It’s the most common problem Jean-Mathieu Daoust sees on trees. An an ISA certified arborist and owner of Tree Frog Tree Care in Calgary ( http://treefrogtreecare.com/.) Daoust sees a lot of tree trouble. Here he tells me about a problem most gardener’s wouldn’t even think about :

” What we see almost on a daily basis are caliper or even potted trees that are being planted too deep. In a lot of cases we’ve seen root flares that are 1.5- 2 feet deep [45-60 cm] and slowly the tree dies.”

Daoust says that if a tree looks like a pencil stuck into the ground it is planted too deep but “if [the trunk] looks like an elephant’s foot resting on the ground it is planted at the right depth.” The Tree Frog team regularly excavate to expose the natural trunk flare of trees and to restore health to the tree.

Daoust remembers a homeowner saying: “We put a tree in and it leafed out slowly for five years and then it died.”

“I said it was planted too deep. I always carry a root excavation kit in my trunk and sure enough I was digging digging digging – 6 inches [15 cm] and still no root flare. I just stopped digging. The tree was gone so I was just digging around the stump and I couldn’t even find the root flare. My suspicions were correct. The tree had died because it was planted too deep.”

Listen Here to an audio clip of Daoust describing how they found out why a tree died (sorry about the background noise from the coffee shop (Note: This article is based on an in-person interview with arborist Jean-Mathieu Daoust at a Starbucks cafe in May 2016. Any errors in transcription are my own. This article is not an endorsement of any one arborist or tree care service.):