CELEBRATING 26 YEARS! Welcome to My weekly series! THE LANDSCAPE PROFESSIONAL Linda K. Lillie of Sprigs & Twigs ASKI Linda K. Lillie has been President of Sprigs & Twigs, Inc. for the last 26 years. She is a graduate of Connecticut College in Botany, an accredited NOFA Organic Land Care Professional, a Connecticut Master Gardener and a national award winning landscape designer for her design and installation projects. I was at a local retail business and noticed a small tree in their landscape that had just fallen over. When I looked closer, it had no roots! What in the world happened? Robin Hello Robin, what you are seeing is the effect of "volcano mulching" of that tree. It seems like everywhere you look; you will see trees mulched in this manner. For some reason, landscape maintenance people that do not know any better, like to pile up mulch around the base of trees. Unfortunately, that is a slow death sentence for the trees and every year untold thousands of trees are killed by this type of mulching practice. Mulch should go no higher than the root flare of a tree (the area at the base of the tree that flares out and gets wider). Allowing mulch to go higher up the tree stem, causes small fibrous roots to get started growing into the mulch. Given time, these roots actually wrap around the base of the tree and "girdle" the tree. As a girdling root grows, it expands and eventually cuts off the remaining roots of the tree, which then die. Once that happens, there are no more roots to anchor the tree and the tree falls over, which is what you see in the picture you sent me. Sprigs & Twigs 10 Above Image: Volcano mulching is slowly killing this tree Above Image: Effects of volcano mulching-which killed this tree EMAIL OR MAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO: info@sprigsandtwigs.net or Linda Lillie, Sprigs & Twigs Inc, PO Box 245, Gales Ferry, CT 06335 SPRICS & TWICS VOTED THE BEST BY DAY READERS EVERY YEAR! WWW.SPRIGSANDTWIGS.NET CELEBRATING 26 YEARS ! Welcome to My weekly series ! THE LANDSCAPE PROFESSIONAL Linda K. Lillie of Sprigs & Twigs ASKI Linda K. Lillie has been President of Sprigs & Twigs , Inc. for the last 26 years . She is a graduate of Connecticut College in Botany , an accredited NOFA Organic Land Care Professional , a Connecticut Master Gardener and a national award winning landscape designer for her design and installation projects . I was at a local retail business and noticed a small tree in their landscape that had just fallen over . When I looked closer , it had no roots ! What in the world happened ? Robin Hello Robin , what you are seeing is the effect of " volcano mulching " of that tree . It seems like everywhere you look ; you will see trees mulched in this manner . For some reason , landscape maintenance people that do not know any better , like to pile up mulch around the base of trees . Unfortunately , that is a slow death sentence for the trees and every year untold thousands of trees are killed by this type of mulching practice . Mulch should go no higher than the root flare of a tree ( the area at the base of the tree that flares out and gets wider ) . Allowing mulch to go higher up the tree stem , causes small fibrous roots to get started growing into the mulch . Given time , these roots actually wrap around the base of the tree and " girdle " the tree . As a girdling root grows , it expands and eventually cuts off the remaining roots of the tree , which then die . Once that happens , there are no more roots to anchor the tree and the tree falls over , which is what you see in the picture you sent me . Sprigs & Twigs 10 Above Image : Volcano mulching is slowly killing this tree Above Image : Effects of volcano mulching - which killed this tree EMAIL OR MAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO : info@sprigsandtwigs.net or Linda Lillie , Sprigs & Twigs Inc , PO Box 245 , Gales Ferry , CT 06335 SPRICS & TWICS VOTED THE BEST BY DAY READERS EVERY YEAR ! WWW.SPRIGSANDTWIGS.NET