Monday, June 23, 2008

Even the pros mess up sometimes.


Planted deep as a coffin. Not really, but very deep. I just got back from a trip to St. Louis. The Missouri Botanic Garden is one of the of the top five public gardens in the country. Yet, the pros don’t always get it right all the time. It appears this poor tree was planted two feet lower than it should have been. (To be fair, it probably was the work of a well-meaning volunteer.) That’s my Dad showing how the tree desperately tried to develop roots closer to the surface. (Clicking on the image presents a lager image.) Too much energy to get feeding roots out near the surface and the death of the deeper roots led to the demise of this tree. Lesson for the gardener? Never plant a plant any deeper than it was grown in a pot or at the of color on the trunk of a bare root tree.

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