Approximately 85 percent of the mulching methods landscapers presently use are actually weakening and eventually killing your trees. Black mulch in dense high piles around trees and bushes rots the bark surfaces, encourages surface root growth, discourages deep supportive root development, prevents penetration of needed moisture, and promote extensive and destructive root girdling. And then we wonder why we lose so many trees in storms!
You are paying high prices for detrimental landscape care — both in mulching practices and in unnecessary herbicides and pesticides. These practices kill off the healthy soil food web. The result is a soil barren of life and therefore dependent on greater applications of synthetic fertilizers, the high quantity of which cannot be absorbed by the plants and thus ends up in our water supply, rendering it undrinkable and poisoning aquatic life.
Working with a landscaping plan that supports a sustainable approach, a diverse native species population, and ease of care is totally attainable. Let us choose to journey in that direction and keep our land healthy for the now and for the future.
Judith Robinson
Robinson is the manager of the Princeton Farmers Market.
