I’ve witnessed a lot of silly things over the years when it comes to landscaping. Some from weekend warriors but I’m sad to say that I’ve also witnessed a lot of things from ‘professional’ landscape companies. From trimming trees with hedge trimmers to planting shade plants in full sun and plants that prefer full sun planted in deep shade. In twenty years, I’ve seen literally thousands of struggling or dead trees due to improper planting techniques. I’ve seen segmented retaining walls built upside down. I’ve followed many a vehicle down Connecticut roadways with uncovered plants. I’ve even been asked to weed a garden filled with plastic plants once. This recent situation gave me a chuckle. Here is a Weeping Copper Beech planted within four feet from a house underneath the shade of an existing Maple.
Copper Beech’s have to be the most majestic specimen tree on the planet. When I was in Syracuse studying Landscape Architecture, there was a Frederick Law Olmsted designed cemetery between my apartment and the downtown area. Quite often, to save a mile of walking, I would take a shortcut through the cemetery. A portion of the cemetery had a grove of the largest Weeping Beech trees I’ve ever seen. These Beeches had to be over 80′ tall and 60′ wide. There are some dwarf varieties of Weeping Beeches. I’m guessing the variety that came out of this property is a variety called Purple Fountain or at least I hope it is a dwarf variety. Purple Fountain is a slower grower than it’s larger brother but still not a great choice for planting 4′ from a house and under an existing Maple tree. It’s not uncommon to see Purple Fountain Beech’s in the 30-40′ range.
Unfortunately, this small property couldn’t handle a tree of this size and had to be removed. Why a landscape company would ever decide to plant this tree is just ridiculous.
3 thoughts on “The Right Plant in the Right Place. Smart Landscaping.”
Great job protecting the fragile roots of that Copper Beech. Next time you barrell tie a tree could you make a video. I really need to learn how to do that!
How about this, I teach you how to ball and burlap a tree if you teach me how to edit videos?
I’ll bring the video camera and you can show me how to do such a nice job wrapping the roots. It can be like a how to video like on HGTV. You be the landscape professional and I’ll be the homeowner.