Volcano Mulching - that bad?

[grilling24x7]

Hi,
Ever since my first post here (a year ago i think?) I was informed about the horror of a tree with no exposed root flare. Ok - great tip. All of my trees that I have ever posted about on this forum are looking fantastic per all your advice. So I thank you.

I've even spent countless nights out with a hose trying to expose the rootflare on my Elm, Cherry, and Maple trees. All is well now - all the trees have nice flare showing.

HOWEVER - everywhere I go, from Lowes, to Home Depot, to Target parking lots, to EVERY neighbor I have - there is at least 1 FOOT of mulch piled up high around the trunk. This turns my stomach on a daily basis - at least! I can't believe how much volcano mulching I see. I find it so silly looking.

My question to you guys now is: is it really that bad? Here I see 99% of all trees completely volcano mulched up to 1 foot of mulch and here I am acting like a volcano mulch nazi to all of my family, friends and neighbors. In fact, I was talking to the homeowners association president about how badly our "common area" trees are volcano mulched. I will be bringing this topic up at our next meeting.

Again - am I being ridiculous? Are trees actually doing ok with this much mulch or are you really seeing a lot of tree death because of this IMO horrible mulching practice. Do the girdling roots really choke out the trees? If so there will be a lot of dead trees in the future.

Thoughts, comments?!

John

 

[Frax]

John

Continue to be a mulch Nazi! This practice is really taking off here too. One service can blow the mulch right into your garden from the street and people think the more the better.
Also once a landscaper has delivered a bunch in a regular truck, he's not gonna take any back if he's already dumped it.
I don't know if these volcanoes can cause girdling roots, but very possibly adventitious roots and some of these may girdle. I think these roots would be short-lived though unless the mulch stays on and stays wet forever.
If the mulch is too deep over most of the root area of a new transplant, I think yes the tree will suffer in many cases.
If its a mulch volcano around the trunk of a mature tree the useful roots may be thankfully far from the mulch pile - but trunk rots might be an issue there.

 

[M.D. Vaden]

If mulch it too thick, a lot of irrigation water can be prevented from reaching the roots certain times of year.

Its important to differentiate between volcano mulching and volcano planting.

There is nothing wrong with volcano planting if the mulching is not too thick and irrigation is supplied properly.

Usually there is no need for volcano planting.

 

[treemandan]

Some people are addicted to crack some are addicted to mulch and that is how you have to approach them- Do they want to change? Or are you fighting a hopeless battle with an addict?

Mulch, crack, booze, adrenilin , to many women, its all the same thing. All things that fill a supposed void in a person's sense of being. The more the merrier.

For the pusher its money in his pocket, he would never admit to being wrong with his selling of death. He makes up stories why what he sells is good which is all to easy to be bought by the people listening to him. And why not? Its so nice to be high, to have pretty mulch, to have something real even if its deadly.

 

[Bigus Termitius]

Got a call this am. Sunset maples not looking so good for the HO. They spent a small fortune paying some arsescaper to put them in 4 years ago.

They call the guy and he's says too bad. So they call me in to take a peek and see what I can do.

They need pruned up a bit, but the worst was the volcano mulch and brick circle retaining walls. Roots were on the girdling warpath, and one root flare shows some signs of initial rot.

I cleaned things up and prepared the rings a bit better for the short term.

One was planted a bit higher than I'd like, but it should fair better after I'm finished.

She then said some mexicans did it. Go figure.

 

[pdqdl]

Volcano mulching isn't terrible for a tree, but it isn't very good either. I think that it looks stupid, too.

The best selling point that I can think of for leveling the volcanoes is to mention to a customer/tree owner that "it sure was a lazy landscaper that piled that mulch up around the tree". (It was, too!)

When they begin to see that the landscaper just piled it on the trunk and quickly smoothed it out, they will realize that they got taken advantage of, and then they are embarrassed to leave it that way.

 

[tomsteve]

a walk in the woods revealed to me that the healthy trees had a nice root flare and no mulch piled up around the base.

 

[M.D. Vaden]

a walk in the woods revealed to me that the healthy trees had a nice root flare and no mulch piled up around the base.

A walk in the woods showed us that healthy trees had trunk flare and heaps of thick needle mulch at the base, almost a foot thick. Although, that was not a one-shot dose, but gradual increase spanning years or decades.

Just depends on the size of the tree, age, and type of mulch. Other forest areas, we barely see an inch.

In urban areas, 1" to 3" is usually sufficient.

View attachment 182617

 

[tomsteve]

yup.natural nature.

 

[xpress]

In urban areas, 1" to 3" is usually sufficient.

Agreed. This is a sufficient depth especially if there are no plans to leave the organic matter created from decomposing leaves and other litter. That being said, piling mulch in a volcano fashion around the trunk does no good and in fact often times gives critters a nice, cool, safe place to begin chewing the tender bark of new nursery stock.

 

[mayhem100]

Forgive a noob here, but when you guys are talking about volcano mulching, does this mean the mulch goes up a significnat height of the trunk and is in contact with the trunk itself?

I used to work as a helper for a landscaper as a lad and we always made a ring around the edge of the rootball of whatever we planted, not huge...2-4" above grade...used to pool up water and provide the newly planted tree a better drink. We would cover this with mulch in many cases, maybe a couple inches worth...little enough that it usually needed to be top dressed annually because the mulch broke down enough to expose soil.

Were we doing good practices with this approach or is this the kind of practice you guys are calling a volcano? I've followed this practice ever since I worked there and have never noticed any issues with my personal plantings, but I don't really have anything to compare it to.

 

[pdqdl]

Yep. That's about right.

The volcano mulching looks like a science fair project with a tree erupting out of the cone. It is generally done by lazy landscapers.

Speaking of lazy landscapers, it REALLY bugs me the way they often dig a tiny little hole that barely holds the tree upright, then they use the dirt from the hole to cover the root ball. Voila! Throw on a 5 gallon bucket of mulch, and you have the makings of another mulch volcano.

A few years ago, I was asked to quote planting about 15 Patmore ash trees. A nursery beat me on the price, and they got the work. I tried to warn my customer that they were being improperly planted (in the fashion that I described above), yet they did nothing about it.

Later that summer, they asked me to remove one of the last trees that had been surviving from previous years. Because they wanted the tree planted in exactly the same location, I brought my miniature excavator and dug a gigantic pit getting the old root ball out. When I was done, the new tree was planted very slightly above grade, with a 5 foot diameter watering ring to help it survive a mid-summer transplant.

Here is what they look like about one year later. This picture was taken by Google maps, so I don't know how old it is. The really full tree has been there for at least 10 years. The tree on the right is mine (planted in August), and all the others in the pic were "June planted" before mine were. BTW; they have had to replace about 1/3rd of the original trees under warranty. Notice that they are still staked up in this picture. See the difference?

View attachment 182672

Don't pick on my mulching either, guys. It had plenty when I put it in the ground.

 

[Bigus Termitius]

View attachment 183168

Here's a mulch volcano for ya.

 

[scubadude1188]

Volcano mulch will lead to root rot and a young tree will just roll out of the ground in 5-10 years. Not good for the tree unless you want them for the short term.

 

[pdqdl]

View attachment 183168

Here's a mulch volcano for ya.

That looks like a classic, for sure, but I think it may be something different. I believe that would be a tree that has been buried in mulch for keeping it alive until it is planted.

A common trick with landscapers.

 

[Bigus Termitius]

That looks like a classic, for sure, but I think it may be something different. I believe that would be a tree that has been buried in mulch for keeping it alive until it is planted.

A common trick with landscapers.

yeah, I know. I dumped that pile last year and couldn't resist taking a pic for the volcano thread.

 

[pdqdl]

Did you ever transplant the tree, or is it still hangin' out with the mulch-cano?

 

[Bigus Termitius]

Did you ever transplant the tree, or is it still hangin' out with the mulch-cano?

That's an old pile I dumped on a guy last year. I'm assuming it's a recent purchase that he just slammed into the pile till he could get to it.