mulching specimen trees

[treeman82]

I was helping out a good friend today cutting some of his lawns. He was cutting at the last one, and snagged the machine on a tree. The machine was kind enough to rip off a big branch on the tree, essentially half if not more than half of the tree. The big problem here is that the tree is a japanese maple, and something that size around here would be NO less than $1,500 My friend had been cutting under this tree with the mowers for probably 15 years without any problems. Did I learn anything from seeing this? Hells yeah! Mulch to the drip line, if not a little bit father on japanese maples and other high $$$ trees.

 

[NeTree]

And the upside, apart from being less likly to hit it, is the tree doesn't have to compete with other landscape vegetation.

 

[Nickrosis]

I agree.

But don't mess up with the mulch!

Good reading:
http://www.plantpath.wisc.edu/pddc/Files/PDFFiles/Full Color/Mulch.pdf

from:
http://www.plantpath.wisc.edu/pddc/pddcgraphics/Publications/Miscellaneous.htm