Wanna Kill that New Young Tree You Recently Planted?

Wanna kill that new young tree you recently planted or put in the ground last year?

Then allow yourself, someone in your family or that lawn service you hire to take a weed eater to it.

Trust me, it doesn't take much. If you or someone else cuts through the bark of a young tree, perhaps even only half the circumference of the trunk, it will most likely die.

This may not occur overnight or even over a season, but eventually, that young tree, for which you had so much promise, will die.

I won't get too involved in the physiology of plants, but cutting into the bark of a young tree is effectively the equivalent of slashing one's wrists - no experiments, please.

I can't count the number of times I see people put a tree on their property with no mulch bed encompassing it. Of course, many do so purely for aesthetics because their neighbors did so - another story, for another time.

Beyond all the benefits of creating a mulch bed around a tree (moisture retention, reducing the affects of direct sunlight, better weed reduction and perhaps some nutritional decomposition of the mulch -  depending on the type), another key reason is to keep your lawn service people from taking a weed eater to your new pride and joy.

If you create some separation between your lawn and the new tree, ABC Lawn Service is less likely to venture into trying to control (unlikely) the unwanted growth in your plants beds and put a hurtin' on that new young Japanese Maple. They simply get carried away - for most of them, plants aren't their thing, even though grass is a plant.

Give that new girl or guy the bed it deserves and let those, who need to know, it is a young tree by giving it its newly recognizable home.