Sunday, June 15, 2008

Doughnuts of Death, Mounds of Mulch


I just got back from the land of “toxic” mulch – the donuts (as spelled by Dunkin’ Donuts) of death in St. Louis, MO. Every landscape contractor (and maybe home gardeners mimicking the landscape companies) seems to be having a contest as to how high they can pile mulch around tree trunks. Some have mounded mulch 16 inches high or higher. These donuts of death are disasters in the making. Root rots (Phytophtora spp.) like a warm and moist/wet soil. Mulching tree trunks so high has all the ingredients needed for the rot of trunks to kill trees. I saw one tree that had mulch apparently piled over the graft of the now dead tree. (Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me at the time.) As the photo says, we must put a stop to this uninformed practice. Landscapers must abandon these donuts of death.

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