7/26/11 SALT CEDAR, AND GOOD INTENTIONS GONE AWRY

SALT CEDAR

...FLOWERS

TREE BOARD AT WORK

VOLCANO MULCHING

7:30 AM.  67 degrees, wind WSW. Very light.  The sky is cloudless with some haze in the east.  The humidity is low but the barometer predicts rain, but not before evening I am sure.  Actually it looks like another fine day.
    We have a number of Tamarix shrubs blooming now in Bayfield, and they  draw a lot of attention as they are unusual and rather attractive in flower.  There are 50 species of Tamarix, in the family Tamaricaceae, mostly of middle eastern and Asiatic origin. Tamarix has a long history in those cultures and is mentioned in the Bible and the Koran and in Egyptian mythology.  The species here is probably ramocissima, and its common name is salt cedar.  It was much planted in the dust bowl days in Great Plains shelter belts.  Unfortunately it has become a major invasive in the American West, as it has tap roots that seek water tables, spreads readily, salinifies soil and often out-competes native and  other desirable vegetation.  It is not listed as an invasive in Wisconsin, but I would not encourage its planting as an ornamental because of that potential, and it is quite hardy.  Additionally, although pretty in flower, it has few other ornamental or  useful characteristics to recommend it.
    The ‘Royal Frost’ birch we planted on the corner of 6th and Manypenny is being subjected to “volcano mulching,” the mulch mounded up around the trunk.  When the tree was planted the wood chip mulch was spread out in a donut shape, the outer ring perhaps four inches deep,  the “donut hole”, two or three inches deep and no more than that around the trunk.  The property owner, wishing to make things neater, made a circle of rocks within which he mounded up the mulch.  Two wrong things occurred here; the rocks may  interfere with the proper growth of surface roots, causing them to eventually grow in a circle around the expanding tree trunk, as girdling roots, which can actually kill the tree trunk or trunks: and the mulch is far too deep around the trunks, causing them to be constantly moist and possibly injuring the bark, or promoting unwanted small roots to grow out them.  In any case it is a matter of good intentions gone awry.  I will have to take some of the mulch away and try to find the property owner at home to explain the situation to him, as I have spread the mulch out to a proper depth a number of times and find it continually put back volcano style.