Root work

Contractors, arborists, and landscape architects in Massachusetts would do well to check out the Ecological Landscaping Association’s September events list.  The ELA is offering a number of really good workshops, on topics ranging from Boston-area restoration projects to the use of fire in landscape management, as well as a two-part, two-day workshop on root issues.  

One day of the root work will focus on soils(f you’ve read any of this blog, or Taking Place In The Trees, you’ll know that I’m interested in roots.)  In the air tool workshop, entitled At The Root: Air Tools Workshop, Rolf Briggs and Matt Foti will be talking about using air to work in the root zone, to decompact soils, to transplant trees and shrubs and also about how to plant nursery-grown stock properly.  

Matt and Rolf have done a similar workshop for the Mass. Arborists Association in the past, and Matt holds an annual workshop on proper planting techniques.  Being able to see what a root system looks like is eye-opening.  Learning — not just from written specs or a generic tree-planting detail — how a tree or shrub should be planted is essential, and well worth the price of admission.  I have been to at least three of these workshops, and learn something new at each one, and so can say that this workshop is one every landscape architect who designs plantings, and every contractor who sells plantings should attend.

Michael waters in a hemlock whose root flare has been excavated with air.

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Not what it seems

Something about this light post base puts me in mind of a stage set. Perhaps it’s the fact that while the base looks as if it’s a heavy iron casting, this tear reveals that it’s really made of a kind of fiberglass or resin. This kind of material for a light post base is all right, I suppose. It does make me wonder about the makeup of other street furniture and accoutrements these days, like manhole covers….

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Parking among the locusts

St. Paul's Church, Cambridge, MA

It’s not just Gothic architecture that makes a good foil for honey locusts. I’ve always been fond of the Romanesque St. Paul’s parking court designed by Burck Ryan Associates. When it empties of cars, it’s a pleasantly proportioned and detailed plaza space punctuated with honey locust trunks; when the cars arrive, it becomes a shady parking lot.

If only those traffic cones were set square and plumb, and made of granite…Regardless, the place operates pretty much the way it was intended to, and in the most Cambridge-compact way possible.

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Tilted planes

To digress just a little from the line discussion: That Parc Citroen photo puts me in mind of the Cornell Arts Quad, around which are ranged some of Cornell’s most historically and academically significant buildings. The Arts Quad is huge (obviously not what it has in common with the Parc Citroen lawns shown), and there is a several-foot (eleven feet?) grade change from east to west, along its short axis.

Cornell Arts Quad looking north to south. The tipped plane displays the lawn more prominently to those walking along the west side and looking east, as an open box of candy looks more appetizing when held at a slant to display its contents better.

When I was a student there in the late 80s, and in the throes of learning how to analyze sites, I realized that the Arts Quad’s tilted plane created a perceptual wall for anyone walking along the west side, looking east and uphill. Standing at the bottom of the lawn and facing east, your eye perceives more lawn even than is actually there, because the plane is slanted rather than flat. In Parc Citroen, the tipped planes of lawn feel similarly more available to the eye from the walks along their low edge.

Using this kind of quiet grade manipulation can let you create a sense of greater green space than may really be available. Horizontal planes give you two axes — horizontal and vertical — to read, while tilted planes give you a more complex experience. I think that controlling the ground plane’s edge makes the experience more readable, as in this Halvorson-designed tilted plane at the Boston Federal Reserve Bank,

Tilted plane of lawn at Boston's Federal Reserve, with South Station behind. This cylinder of stone and grass is actually part of the Fed's security system -- no one can drive a truck through it to hit the bank's glass walls, just to the left. But you don't read it as a giant bollard; you read it as a big pad of lawn, elevated and held out to your eyes on a stone tray.

or at Park Citroen. Where the plane continues to buildings (which accommodate the grade change), as in the Arts Quad, the effect is more subtle.

Now that's a controlled edge.

Manipulating the ground plane with a wash is a fine way to tweak how a space is perceived, and to give it more quiet complexity.

Cornell Arts Quad photo taken by Anjum and supplied courtesy of Flickr.

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New Hampshire stone walls

The Boston Globe just published this piece about stone wall theft throughout New England. It describes the just-passed New Hampshire law that will assess triple damages for the restoration of a stolen wall — plus attorneys’ fees — against those who steal that stone wall. That’s a lot of spondulix. The article is worth a read.

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Another air-tool bare-root transplanting

Here’s a series of photos from an air-tool transplant project executed last week by a crew from Matthew R. Foti Landscape and Tree Service of Lexington, MA.These guys have been using air tools to bare-root trees for some time now, and they have refined the process pretty skillfully.

Shown here are a very large treeform Taxus and a smallish Cornus kousa. The Kousa Dogwood had been planted only about 8′ away from the Yew, and probably had been sheltered by it in its early days. At this stage, though, their crowns had been competing, and a revised landscape design gave further reason to spade out and move both plants.

Taxus and Cornus kousa planted closely together, as part of a larger planting that has already been dismantled.

The Bobcat has dug a trench, and the crew is blowing soil into it. Note that the Yew's branches have been tied up to keep them out of the way.

Taxus is a deeply rooted plant -- notice the trench depth, and presence of roots in the lower part of the mound..

Soil and rocks fly during the process, so eye and ear protection are essential. The white jumpsuits keep these guys from getting covered with soil (color is optional).

Bobcat continually takes blown soil out of the trench and stockpiles it.

Double-teaming a soil clod. Pushing the nozzle down into the root mass helps loosen soil inside it.

Pigtailing the roots -- tying them in long bundles -- helps keep them protected and out of the way.

Twine holds the pigtails together; when the plant is ready to move, twine can also be used to tie the pigtails back to the trunk, to keep them from dragging during transport.

Progress shot. Look at how deep the trench is. The Taxus is nearly ready, and shortly the crew will move on to the Cornus kousa; when both trees have been blown out, they will be separated and moved to new locations.

The following week: Taxus in a new spot, looking relaxed and healthy.

Final shot. Asymmetry in the Taxus crown reflects its previous location in a larger planting.

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No photos here

What is a landscape architect doing writing about these methods of tree planting and moving? Well, for one thing, I don’t like to waste woody plants. Planting an ingrown-root tree (or even a healthy one) in a new landscape without attending to the tree’s requirements — for rooting space, for decent soil porosity, for adequate moisture, for sufficient gas/air exchange at the root flare, for sufficient light, among other things — can lead to the tree’s being stressed, declining, and dying in relatively short order (a typical urban street tree lasts 7-10 years, and is in decline for most of that time). That seems a waste to me.

A tree represents a lot of energy. A tree is a system, as well as a component in a larger system. And my design work takes place in a larger system, too — that commercial system, where clients hire me to make comfortable, beautiful, gracious outdoor spaces for them. The more knowledgeable I am about these big, organic, living design elements, these systems, the better my built projects will be, and the more sustaining and sustained they will be, as well. If the best advertisement for a landscape architect is the landscape we design, then it makes sense for us to know a lot, and to use what we know, about the biggest elements we use in that landscape.

Wait’ll I start writing about water….

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Root-washed tree revisited

To continue the story from the previous post (check out the photos on that one):

Wednesday, I had to visit Cavicchio’s Greenhouses to tag a tree. Carl and I arranged to meet there, and Carl called to see if Jake Cavicchio could meet us at the little pin oak. We bumped down a back road to the base of a slope, and recognized the tree immediately. It had some deadwood, but had leafed out nicely and seemed to be growing well.

Jake remarked on the deadwood — he said that it had all been there last year, and that this year no more seemed to have developed.

The day after the root-washing, Cavicchio’s had planted in three other pin oaks, similarly root-bound, in the same area. Those three were planted conventionally, their root balls holding the same red clay that had been washed out of the first tree.

The most noticeable difference between the first, root-washed tree and its companions was that the three conventionally planted trees were showing signs of current stress, while the first tree looked fine. Each of the three other trees had foliage sprouting from its trunk, a symptom of stress and an indication that the tree is trying to counteract decline. On the other hand, each of the trees also had similar top growth to the first tree.

It is probably too early to tell what the future will hold for any of these trees — regardless of planting method, the fact that all the trees are now planted out boosts the possibility that they will survive. It seems entirely likely, though, that the tree whose roots were freed from the dense clay soil ball will now encounter less struggle to reestablish a vigorous root system, and that reduced stress for it will mean a healthier prognosis than for the other trees. Take a look at these photos.

Jake Cavicchio and Carl Cathcart with the root-washed pin oak planted last October

Jake Cavicchio with the pin oak he root-washed

Well-structured root flare, at the right grade

Conventionally planted pin oak, planted at the same time as the first tree, showing signs of stress

Adventitious buds along the trunk have leafed out, indicating that this conventionally planted oak (which had been balled and burlapped for two years and was unsaleable) is under stress

Owner: Cavicchio’s Greenhouses, Inc., Sudbury, MA
Arborist: Carl Cathcart, MCA
Tree mover: Jake Cavicchio
Scale figures: Carl Cathcart, Jake Cavicchio

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Root-washing test case

Carl Cathcart, Consulting Arborist and mentor to any number of Massachusetts arborists, sent me an email a couple of months ago. In it, he told about a pin oak (Quercus palustris) that had been sitting, balled and burlapped, in Cavicchio’s Greenhouses, Inc. for a couple of years. Carl, out at the nursery at the time, heard that Cavicchio’s was planning to send the tree to the dump, and he persuaded Paul Cavicchio to save it, root-wash it, and plant it out.

Jim Flott, of Community Forestry Consultants in Spokane, Washington, had given a workshop on root-washing at the 2007 New England ISA meeting. He distributed this document on root-washing, and — oh, okay, I’ll say it — made a big splash with the arborists, including Carl.

The pin oak presented a good opportunity to see how root-washing might work on an otherwise doomed tree. Jake Cavicchio, Paul’s son, washed the roots with a firehose using 90 pounds of pressure; according to Carl, “The soil was all clay and hard as a rock.” Obviously, the firehose method applied more pressure than what Jim Flott recommends, but in this instance (the tree’s roots were entirely clay-bound, and its options were firehose or trash pile), the firehose was the best solution. Here are Carl’s photos from that operation:

Root ball is held with a fork lift while Jake aims the fire hose at its clay root ball.

Aiming from all angles loosens the soil so it can wash away

Washing a root ball this large requires plenty of space

Dense mass of roots revealed

Preserving these roots should help save the tree

Moving the pin oak to its new home

Roots have been spread out as best as possible; now the hole is being backfilled and flooded. Plunging the stake into the wet fill helps remove air pockets.

Paul Cavicchio holding a guy stake for the machine to push into the ground

Carl had taken those photos of last fall’s washing operation, but until this week hadn’t been back to see how the tree was doing. This past Wednesday, when I was at the nursery in hopes of tagging a tree for a project, Carl arranged for us to meet Jake at the tree. We were hopeful…

Photos and Inspiration: Carl Cathcart, MCA
Owner: Cavicchio Greenhouses, Inc., Sudbury, MA
Planting Crew: Jake Cavicchio, Paul Cavicchio, employees of Cavicchio Greenhouses, Inc.

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Meta note

I just checked Taking Place’s stats, and find that hits spiked for the “Stone Walls For The Taking” post. They really spiked. It baffled me, and then I Googled “stone walls for the taking”, and discovered that post as the first and second entries on Google. Apparently a lot of people are looking for free stone walls…

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