Acer palmatum Atropurpureum

Treat trees (and Japanese maples) tenderly was the theme of an article by Dan Gill, gardening columnist of The Times-Picayune, that appeared on the nola.com (New Orleans, Louisiana) on-line magazine. The article was a response to a gardener who had the trunk of a Japanese maple, planted in her lawn, damaged by a strimmer.

Gill brought home the dangers that mowers and strimmers can pose to trees with thin bark such as a Japanese maple and put forward a number of suggestions to reduce or eliminate potential life-threatening damage. Fitting a tree guard was one suggestion, another was to keep grass away from the trunk by placing a mulch around the base.

He also briefly touched on the subject of watering, specifically over-watering, and overuse of fertilizer and the problems they cause, although strictly speaking a mulch, when applied correctly, will remove the need for any irrigation, particularly in the summer.

You can read the full article here.

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