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Personal note from the web-master: As you will see in the varied responses for planting hostas underneath maple trees with invasive root system, there is a variety of opinions and methods. Maple trees are a particular sore spot for me because I have two 'beautiful' silver maples trees in my front yard. Their shade is too valuable to cut away. I am playing with several ideas of my own, none which I have decided on to use. But here is my current solution list. Comments are welcome!
Hostas and 'Those Maple Trees'. . . . By Various AHS E-Mail Round Robin Members Carolyn Putterman adds her woes with her maple trees:
I've already admitted I killed three.......trees. I was going to take the "bull by the horns" (that's a chain saw with a firm grip on the handle) to this Sugar Maple, but with my luck, I'd get arrested with assault with a deadly weapon OR assault with intent to kill !!! And after what happened to a friend of mine, I'm not to sure about being that aggressive. True Story: Friend of mine had a tree in front of his store. Every time someone walked by that tree, it would take one of it's branches and swack them on the head. Well, he felt bad that people were getting swacked, so he took a saw out to that tree, and cut off ONLY ONE branch. Well that branch dropped......the tree yelled......the branch jumped off the sidewalk and fell right on his foot.....broke his foot. Now we have a grown man on crutches and cast smoozing around in the December snow and ice slipping & sliding and trying very hard not to break his neck. Now this was a ten year old Bradford Pear. AND YOU WANT ME TO ATTACK a thirty year old Sugar Maple. Well, I must tell you, I value my life. If a Bradford Pear can do that, can you imagine what an attitude that old duffer Sugar Maple could get, and to top it all off, I risk the chance of getting arrested for assault!!!!! Ken Marek suggests the following to deal with maple tree roots:
Ransom Lydell suggests the following system for dealing with maple tree roots: Determine bed edges around tree. Remove sod and as much soil as you can. Add 2" # 1 & 2 stone. put small (hand sized) boulders around the tree trunk. (about 12" deep) Place "weed mat" on # 1 & 2 stone. allow some material to turn up on face of boulders. Tuck outside edges in trench /edging at bed perimeter. Make sure that all seems are well overlapped. add 8 to 10 " high humus soil. Do not use sand in this mix. Plant! Have fun! Gayle Kamp suggests the following system: I used garbage cans that were rusted out or found some at garage sales that were almost gone...or used the good ones in my compost area and used the older...not so good ones.....cut them in half....took what was left of the bottom out....spray painted them rust-oleum-green and I had two pots out of one. Inserted in the ground up high enough to be level with mature ground covers... and filled almost to the top with good soil...left there over the winter etc., I do pour them full of and/or mound over them with cut up dry leaves in winter. Have never lost one. They provided 'niches' in the garden for me. Years ago I began putting in areas of ground covers because of the shade. I had all of the old hostas, then discovered the new ones.... so originally I did not do it because of the Maple. Hopefully, there might be a picture or two in the Journal of what I am talking about....from the National Garden Tour this summer. If not, I saw Steve Nyikos at the Indianapolis Hosta Bingo party Friday night and I am going to send him some pictures and I will make a note to have him send you an image of one or two that shows what I did. Questions will be fine....Hope this has been helpful! A modification of the system I suggested, is to acquire some LARGE poly nursery pots. Line the inside with the "weed Mat" , then fill with soil, and dig holes around the tree for the pots. You can use these for planting pockets and they will be good for a few years. Butch Ragland adds the following modifications to Ranson's suggestions: Let me add a couple of things to Ran's pot procedure. 1. Drill many small holes in the pot so that water will pass in and out easily. 2. Place the weed mat outside of the pot otherwise the tree roots will come in through the holes and surround the root ball. 3. Don't expose the weed mat to the air as it will act as a wick and dry the soil. New un-tested procedure: fertilize often with dilute foliar feed fertilizer which will be less likely to reach the tree roots. Look for a fine misting nozzle to cut down on damage to the blue hosta from frequent water. |
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