Soils & Roots
A tree in a forest exists within a massive and complex support system, being directly and indirectly helped by microbes within the soil, neighboring trees, and even by animals. A tree in the urban forest often exists in isolation from most of the complex systems found in its natural habitat, which can result in difficult growing conditions for the tree.
There is currently a renaissance happening tree care, and part of that is the change in how soil care is approached. Moving away from synthetic fertilizers and towards improving biodiversity in soils instead. Many practices in traditional tree soil care have been adopted from agriculture, which can have a litany of adverse and unintended consequences for trees and the life of the soil they grow in.
Focusing on soil biodiversity looks a little something like this: the development of dedicated soil improvement spaces.
A very large soil improvement zone we developed beneath an old sugar maple, Rochester Hills, MI
If you’ve ever thought about improving the health of your trees, it all starts in the soil.