Lawn care epidemic
I often receive calls from potential new clients to come over and give them a quote. So that’s how I found myself standing in front of a new home in Coquitlam, British Columbia, a few weeks ago. The lawns looked fine but they were clearly slowing down as sunny weather arrived.
The previous landscaper allegedly cut the lawns for $40 which seems ok, considering the small size of the lawns. But I did notice some blemishes: I didn’t see any deep edges established, the neighbour’s rhododendron obscured the cedar hedges, some boxwoods looked like they were planted too deep and, this got me very excited, I could see evidence of tree bark damage. I’m not exaggerating when I call it an epidemic.
I’m talking about two beautiful Japanese maples (Acer palmatum) standing in the lawn and close to the ground their bark was missing at nearly three-hundred and sixty degrees.
Note damage and lack of a well-defined tree well.
Leave the trees alone
Now, let’s be clear about this: landscapers don’t have the right of way around trees. You’re not allowed to slash up tree bark and move on to another $40 gig. The trees need their bark. We’ll cover that shortly.
What’s astonishing is that the home is fairly new and the trees are already damaged. That’s why I’ve created an online course on Lawn Care mistakes which covers this problem. Of course, landscapers are busy people and it’s not easy to get them to take a quick online course on lawn care mistakes. They don’t make mistakes!
Missing bark
Just like your own skin, tree bark has its own function; it protects the tissues behind it. Now, when you slash the bark with your line trimmer or crash into it with your mower, you stress the tree. While other trees use available resources for growth, our abused and slashed up specimen must use its precious resources for repairs.
Repeated wounding, say bi-weekly, if the landscaper comes every two weeks, can eventually kill the tree as the transport of water and nutrients is affected. Also, open wounds can invite diseases into the tree.
Solutions
As soon as I saw the damaged bark on the trees, I suggested to the owner that we establish well-defined tree wells. He agreed.
You can also install plastic guards if you’re not motivated to establish tree wells; or put in tree wells and still put guards on. That should make it clear to any lawn care dude coming in that the trees are off-limits.
The third solution is education. Like this blog post and my online course. It’s shocking how lawn care training doesn’t extend to trees. I see lawn care workers mindlessly slashing trees because they haven’t been trained properly. Lawns come first, trees come second.
Bark injuries stress trees and can eventually kill them. That’s not worth a bit of shaggy grass around the trunk. Leave the tree alone.
