Mulching trees with root diseases

[Steve Bullman]

I priced a job today, 2 big beech trees, a center piece of the customers garden. One is dying back in the crown due to a root rotting fungus. As she doesnt want to lose the tree till she has to I am pricing to remove the deadwood and take some tip weight out of some long branches, pretty minimal stuff.

In this instance do you think a mulch bed round the base of the tree would prolong the trees life and slow the root decaying process?

[MattyF]

i duno mate but at a guess i would say it would be better than lawn.

ive heard grass under raised up trees halfs there lifes

[Amelanchier]

It's hard to sell but mulching (properly) out to the drip line is the best (only?) thing you can do.

 

Its tends to be (especially at the moment) my standard mantra. I look on it as the equivalent of your GP telling you to have a few days off work in bed when you feel like crap. Not going to cure the illness but gives you the time and ability to fight it off yourself.

[MattyF]

naturally all trees would be self mulched with there own leaf matter so it makes sense.

I bet the poor thing has been raised and maybe thinned to eternity in the name of tree care in the past?

[Steve Bullman]

nope, it looks relatively untouched

[MattyF]

ok sorry dude just thinking of a few of the ones ive seen lately and it brings images to my mind!

I would go with the mulching and maybe some root decompacting and feeding from lee unless it has meripilus, in wich case fell it!

[Steve Bullman]

well she definetly doesnt want to lose it, she'd rather have some minimal work done on it to make it as safe as possible. i told her it was on its way out, no getting away from that!

[MattyF]

just looked at the other thread the ID thread! if it it was tony says and its gonna cause damage if it fails felling looks like the only option.

Ive done minimal work to preserve beaches with bad root decay although you can maintain a healthy canopy they have still failed luckily in the right direction!

[Amelanchier]

There was an article a while ago by Andrew Cowan in whch he described the use of an Airspade to investigate the main structural roots of a large Beech with Meripilus. The investigation concluded no significant decay and it was decided to undertake a light reduction to minimise further risk.

 

Difficult call to make though, with all that history of Beech and Meripilus. What's the target area like?

[Steve Bullman]

no targets unless there happened to be someone walking under it at the time...its a private garden though and i told her the risks and my recommendations!

 

the beech are planted in a pair, probably about 15ft apart....one beech is healthy, i'm assuming the liklihood of the other beech getting meriplius is also high?