Restricting Tree Roots With Edging
Roots positively amaze me. Maybe the fact that they're so hard to see heightens my fascination. Recently I met someone who, like me, has been seeking root facts. I wrote about sources of root information in Growing Concerns November 3, 2007. You can read that in the Growing Concerns.
Here I'm inviting one and all to contribute root facts they've learned by experience or personal experimentation.
Do it this way: Post the plant name, and then the fact. Post one fact or many but start each with the plant name.
For instance:
Ginkgo tree roots grow down from the trunk at a fairly good angle, and don't level out to begin to grow horizontally until they get quite deep (I've seen 15" in well drained loam). So like the shoulders of a heavily muscled man, the slope down and away from center, their trunk. Makes for a nice tree to garden near!
Nightshade roots stink! A yeasty, heavy smell. Ugh.
Spruce and many evergreen tree roots I know have waxy, blunt growing tips.
Ginkgo roots look as much like evergreen roots as I've ever seen. Like spruce roots.
One more "rule" --
No questions here! To maintain this as a simple compilation, I'm going to be moderating and editing toward that end! If something you read here raises a question in your mind, use that question to start a new topic. For instance, you might start a topic "Are Clematis roots toxic?" and place it here in this "Ins and Outs" folder, or in one of the other folders on the forum that apply, such as "Vines" or "Practical Gardening."
Here I'm inviting one and all to contribute root facts they've learned by experience or personal experimentation.
Do it this way: Post the plant name, and then the fact. Post one fact or many but start each with the plant name.
For instance:
Ginkgo tree roots grow down from the trunk at a fairly good angle, and don't level out to begin to grow horizontally until they get quite deep (I've seen 15" in well drained loam). So like the shoulders of a heavily muscled man, the slope down and away from center, their trunk. Makes for a nice tree to garden near!
Nightshade roots stink! A yeasty, heavy smell. Ugh.
Spruce and many evergreen tree roots I know have waxy, blunt growing tips.
Ginkgo roots look as much like evergreen roots as I've ever seen. Like spruce roots.
One more "rule" --
No questions here! To maintain this as a simple compilation, I'm going to be moderating and editing toward that end! If something you read here raises a question in your mind, use that question to start a new topic. For instance, you might start a topic "Are Clematis roots toxic?" and place it here in this "Ins and Outs" folder, or in one of the other folders on the forum that apply, such as "Vines" or "Practical Gardening."