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Spa Day for a Serviceberry

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When the Other Half volunteered his time this year at the Mayor’s Greening Initiative, a spring day in which our little city plants trees with the Parks department, he was sent home with a free tree. He texted me about what tree to choose for the Lot when I was heading into a Bare Roots class. While waiting for the class to start, I frantically looked up all the tree names he was sending to me. After a quick check with my instructor, we selected a serviceberry (Amelanchier laevis). For years I’ve been obsessing over getting a serviceberry tree, and now it was going to happen.

Bare Roots… For Tree Planting?

Cut to a couple of years ago when Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott was the keynote speaker at the Smart Gardening conference. If you want some hardcore science to side-dress your gardening, she is the lady to see. I enjoy reading The Garden Professors, an online garden/science blog to which she is a contributor. One of the topics she covered at the conference was root washing and pruning of container-grown and ball/burlap trees before planting to improve their chances to thrive.

As mentioned in my post about going bare root with perennials, the thought of doing this to a tree TERRIFIES me. Human emotion and science have a history of not always mixing very well. However, the more and more I read about Chalker-Scott’s experiments in root washing, the more it completely made sense (and had the science/results to back it). Then it just so happened, my friend Miss B had the opportunity to join instructor Bert Cregg of Michigan State University in a study of the cost and benefits of pre-plant root manipulation. So, fast forward to this past weekend and I’ve finally summed up enough courage to root wash the serviceberry before planting!

Behind the Potting Medium Curtain

After proposing the experiment to the Other Half and getting his okay, I set to work on the serviceberry. The tree we had received was in a container, so it wasn’t very huge or awkward to handle. Here’s what I found when I pulled the tree out of the container.

root ball of serviceberry

The roots didn’t look packed into the container and growing out the bottom, which is something I run into often when purchasing annuals in the spring. It did seem the tree was sitting too deep into the potting medium because the root flare, the area of the trunk where it begins to flare out into supporting roots, was non-existent.

stem of service berry meeting potting medium

So, feeling a bit less anxious I would have to get aggressive with roots, I began to excavate in search of the root flare. This involved me tapping the root ball on a tarp to shake loose the potting medium. Soon I had a rat’s nest of roots refusing to let go of any more potting medium. UGH. I pulled out a tub and headed over to the outdoor tap. My shot at root washing was going to happen after all.

serviceberry in plastic tub

Finding the Root Flare on a Serviceberry

I began by pouring some water over the top of the root ball. As the water revealed more of the roots, I already noticed a problem. The side branch of the service berry had been under the potting medium for so long it had grown its very own roots! A watering can later and still no sign of a root flare. However, the trunk itself had grown roots. Did this tree even HAVE a root flare?! Was I missing something?

branch and stem of serviceberry

With curiosity winning over caution, I plunged the whole root ball into the container of water and began working the medium loose with my fingers. Finally, I found it. The root flare had been located. The flare is used as a guideline to plant a tree at correct depth. With the difference in coloring on the trunk as an indicator in the photo below, notice how deep this serviceberry was buried in the potting medium.

root flare of serviceberry

Correcting Girdling Roots

With the flare located, I set to work on pruning the roots. This was the part of my backyard experiment that really set me on edge. However, if left unaltered, the roots already bending and circling around the tree would continue to do so. The roots would thicken, become larger, and eventually strangle the tree like a self-made noose.

girdling roots on serviceberry
Notice the roots above that are growing in an encircling pattern around the tree.

A bit of fussing with the roots now would allow the tree to grow an outward-branching root system. This healthier root systems in turn allots the tree a stronger chance of thriving moving forward. So I set to work removing roots with my pruners at the point they bent around the trunk. Since the container and tree were still small, this often meant removing the root where it emerged from the trunk.

pruned root system
root system with roots removed
pruned roots on serviceberry

Eventually with a snip here and a snip there, the majority of the curving roots had been removed. I felt it was time to get this little tree planted in the garden.

bare root serviceberry

Bare Root Planting a Tree

I dug a wide hole deep enough for the root system to sit within, the roots splayed outward and slightly downward. The Other Half held the tree upright with the bottom of the trunk perched on a small mound of soil at the center of the hole. The root systems of trees don’t mimic the canopy underground. Instead, the roots of tree look as if they fill a shallow (in comparison to the height of the tree/canopy), wide dish. We used the newly exposed root flare as the marker for how deep to plant the serviceberry.

serviceberry planted at grade

I didn’t add any compost or fertilizer to the planting hole. There are some great articles over at the Garden Professors blog about why it may not be necessary. The chips that had been sitting at the top of the container were dumped around the newly planted tree.

service berry with chips

Then I added a nice layer of wood chip mulch to help hold in moisture and keep the soil cooler against the heat of the upcoming summer season. Now, Dr. Chalker-Scott would throw up a red flag here because she has run studies on the benefits of mulching with arborist chips. However, I still have not made time to locate a source for small quantities in our little city. Gardening always quite literally offers room to grow, right?

Monitoring a Bare Root Planted Tree

The serviceberry, with corrected roots, was now snug against native soil on The Lot. I needed a drink. The process of root washing and pruning took a lot longer than I had thought. However, I believe the main reason behind this to be my own nerves and hesitation.

SUMMER IS COMING and now it is our responsibility to baby this little tree until autumn. We will be giving it long, deep drinks of water. Since the tree will be stressed, it is more vulnerable to pests and diseases. I’ll be monitoring for this and will share anything I notice.

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – May 2019

backyard bed, bloom day, bulbs, front bed, gate bed, loki bed, perennials, southwest bed, spring, the Lot

It has been awhile since I participated in Bloom Day over at May Dreams Gardens. But the weather was slightly overcast the other morning, so I brought the camera out into the garden with that goal in mind. This Spring on the Lot seems to be running behind previous years. When I attended a bare roots class the other weekend, our instructor commented we are about 2 weeks behind last year. Looking back at the blog at previous Spring blooms for May, that does indeed seem to be the case.

Out front in the south bed of the Lot, those classic red tulips are blooming. These bulbs were in the bed when we moved into the home. There are many not blooming beside and behind the overgrown yew which also was there on move-in day. I’m determined this year to mark area with popsicle sticks and dig them up in the fall and relocate them. The bi-color tulips are newer.

In this southwest bed are new tulips as well. The creeping phlox (Phlox subulata) is also blooming. I’d like to divide it after it is done blooming and distribute it more evenly through the south and southwest bed.

Pro Tip: To get a discount on creeping phlox for your garden, visit the nursery after the phlox’s bloom time. The nursery will have sheered off the spent blooms, so it is harder for them to sell to the public. If you know what you’re looking for, you often get a bargain!

And then I got momentarily distracted by these less-than-perfect looking tulip blooms. I do enjoy a good quirky, bug nibbled flower.

It also had rained the night before, so there were droplets of rainwater still on the plants. Okay, onward!

Here the barrenwort (Epimedium) is in bloom in the east bed. I LOVE, love, love this plant. It is so magical…like foam flower (Tiarella) magical. Those little flowers look like they are floating, and check out the foliage! This is a rockstar for dry shade or morning sun areas in the garden.

In the back garden of the Lot, the bleeding heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis) is displaying its stalks of suspended blooms. I have a lot of seedlings from this plant to give away in a neighborhood plant exchange this year!

Here is a service berry shrub in bloom. This shrub is a favorite of any robins nesting nearby. They absolutely love the fruit.

A closeup of the shrub. I really enjoy white blooms in the spring. Whenever we have rainy days and overcast skies, the white blooms of this shrub seem to glow. It’s a nice reminder when looking out the kitchen window that spring is indeed in progress.

This Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum odoratum ‘Variegatum’) colony, pictured to the left of St. Francis, began with transplants from Loki’s bed thanks to my gardening buddy Ms. A. I feel it’s filled in rather nice.

In the very back of the backyard garden, this barren strawberry (Waldsteinia fragarioides) is nestled between the rain barrels. Again, the lighter color bloom brightens up this area on cloudy days. It’s often grown as a groundcover, though it has been slow to spread in this spot. I think I’m going to grab a few more of these during this year’s nursery crawl.

Gah, I love this plant SO much!!! It’s prairie smoke geum (Geum triflorum). There are geum cultivars available, but I’ve never found any of them as interesting as this native gem. I feel this could be one of those magical plants as well. That’s a scientific classification, right?

A closeup shot of the flowers. So fuzzy!!!

And finally in Loki’s bed, the very first lenten rose (Helleborus) to grace the Lot is in full bloom with new grow on the way. It gets larger and more beautiful every season.

But Wait, There’s More

There are more plants blooming on the Lot I haven’t pictured above. A whole bunch of grape hyacinth bulbs (Muscari) and violets are adding purple dots of color. Cranesbill (Geranium) and more lenten rose (Helleborus) are also in bloom. A few primrose (Primula vulgaris) are still blooming. The brunnera (Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’), lungwort (Pulmonaria), and rock cress ((Arabis sturii) are all beginning to bloom.

Migrating Party

backyard bed, birds, spring, the Lot

I’m not sure how to explain what was happening today at the bird feeder in the back garden. On the Lot, we have a site line from our kitchen window into the middle of the back garden. The Other Half and myself enjoy watching for birds visiting throughout the seasons. We enjoy it enough our friend Ms. A purchased us a backyard bird ID guide.

Across the backyard near the garage we have a tray feeder for sunflower seeds, a hanging feeder for jams and fruit, and a suet cage. Right outside the kitchen window we’ve hung a thistle seed feeder on one side and a suet feeder on the other. The thistle seed feeder is often crammed full of American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis), both to our delight and the four-footed management’s frustration. The little roof at the top of the horizontally hung suet feeder ensures the suet is reserved for woodpeckers, nuthatches, and any other bird willing to cling upside down to enjoy the feed. We usually find the downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens ) grabbing a meal.

Anyway, back to today. I had left my office and walked downstairs to refill my coffee mug. I always like to look out our window into the garden to see who is at the feeders. A normal day will bring the goldfinches, house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus), woodpeckers, northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis ), recently a pair of black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) , mourning doves (Zenaida macroura ), and a whole load of house sparrows (Passer domesticus).

But today was different. Hopping around on the ground below the feeder was a rose-breasted grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus)! I have NEVER seen this bird in the back garden since we moved here just over ten years ago. Mom G has loads of them in her garden 2 hours north of the Lot. It was a juvenile male, but still quite pretty.

I excitedly texted the Other Half to tell him the news. When I looked up again, there was yet another bird I had never seen at our feeder! It was a block of the prettiest gray, with a slightly darker gray cap and narrow, pointy beak. Some minutes spent with the ID book helped me to identify the bird as a gray catbird (Dumetella carolinensis).

Returning to my desk for work, I felt giddy with having witnessed these new visitors to the back garden. As mentioned many times before in this digital journal, one of the reasons I garden is for wildlife. Even if they were passing through for migration, I was happy to have created a space the birds could stop in and grab a bite.

Lunch time rolled around and I headed back down to the kitchen to get a meal of my own. I about fell over when I looked out the back window. Four adult male rose-breasted grosbeaks and one female were at the feeders. One of the males flew right up to the back window to take a try at the finch feeder. Also, hopping around on the ground below the feeder were several white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys ). This is a bird who has visited before, but often is only here a short time as they make their way north to Canada.

And then, as if this bombardment of diverse birds all in one day wasn’t enough, I spotted it. A baltimore oriole (Icterus galbula). I have tried every. single. spring. since living here to get this bird to visit the Lot. I ever-so-slowly reached into the kitchen drawer for the binoculars we keep there and took a closer look at it. Yes! It was an oriole!!! The recently sought after advice from Sister G had paid off.

When I again texted the Other Half, his reply was “Now you’re just making stuff up”. At least when he got home tonight he was able to see a Ms. and Mr. grosbeak. The whole experience was fantastic and I can’t wait to see what this season brings with our feathered friends.

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