Parking Lot Impacted Pines

monterey pines
reaching maturity
in small enclosures
roots mainly into pavement beyond the 4 to 5 ft planters theyre planted in
loosing the vibrant green color
looking stressed
1 has bark beetle
obvious root damage from installing new curbs

i want to feed some of these trees, but the majority of the roots are in the parking lot area

can i vertical mulch those small planter pits and feed thru those holes

will dr earth's organic general purpose fert help, or do you have any suggestions on what will restore color and help with strength, not growth
remember i dont have an applicators lic. so i'm going for simple

i've got to meet the mngrs of the shopping center today
they called about trimming them
but i don't see much to trim, i see the need to crown clean the large dead, and broken limbs but thats it

i see the need to feed

any fert suggestions guys

"Impacted" ? So the trees are constipated?

Sorry, couldn't resist.


Bartlet has done a bunch of research on trees with roots under pavement and they apparently do really well so the damage from the new curbing sounds like the initial stressor. How about alkali contamination from the concrete? Can it be neutralized?

You can vertical mulch at the edge of the planters to feed but do a soil test first (make sure you get the pH. No point in adding ferts that aren't needed and you may find some other sort of contamination. Parking lot trees get dumped on with all kinds of weird stuff.

Bark beetles... a pine then? ID it and spray the other trees to keep down the spread and do it fast.

Around here they use limestone as a compaction base under the asphalt. This makes the soil very alkaline and our pines prefer a more acidic soil. The alkaline soil makes the trees look just as you describe. You may want to do a soil PH test to see if this is indeed the cause of your problem. Back when I did lawn maintenance I treated a few alkaline lawns with chelated liquid iron which worked fairly well, although results lasted less than a year.

thattreeguy said:

monterey pines
reaching maturity
in small enclosures
roots mainly into pavement beyond the 4 to 5 ft planters theyre planted in
loosing the vibrant green color
looking stressed
1 has bark beetle
obvious root damage from installing new curbs

Click to expand...

Beautiful poem.

Dave could probably turn out some fine haikus if he put his mind to it.

Have you considered 'heat sink'?
Jeff

i was thinking of a soils test and plant tissue test to analyze for deficiencies
the company that owns the trees , loves them, to a fault
yet they need their bid like now
and are in a huge rush
i never get to speak to the owners (which sucks)
only maint guys, who really could care less

i like to use dr earth 's ferts around here
but they are very mild, organic ferts, chock full of micro rhizae (sp)
but not strong like davey or bartletts custom blends

the dr earth has worked on many trees for me, i use it when i vertical mulch
and there is no worries about contamination from it if it ends up in the drains and out to the rivers
i just wonder if it's too mild for the situation
or would be a waste of time and money

If the ph is too alkaline then the chelated iron will help appearance a lot. If you really want to take their money then you could sell them injections, which will give the fastest visual effects although I'm not sold on the long term effectiveness.

If they really love their trees, they shouldn't be in such a damn hurry. They should take whatever time it takes to ACTUALLY preserve the trees.

I'm gonna look into Dr Earth. I've heard of it but don't know anything else about it. Sounds ideal for V mulching.

Bid it high, sort the details later

dr earth has saved me many trees thru vertical mulching
dr earth, mixed with the happy frog compost
and watered in with super thrive
cant get much better or natural than that....

i know i know super thrive is snake oil , blah blah,
i like it, and it dont cost much more to add to the mix

i like willy's idea
bid high figure out later