Landscape maintenance mistakes abound in both residential and public landscapes. What are some of these landscape maintenance errors and how do they happen? Photographs.

Landscape Mistakes and Their Causes

Landscape maintenance mistakes abound in both residential and public landscapes. What are some of these common and widespread landscape maintenance errors? Why do these landscape maintenance errors take place?

Generally, error falls into one of three categories:

• Pruning,
• Mulching, and
• Site selection.

Problems result from:

• Lack of knowledge,
• Misunderstanding or poor judgment, or
• Carelessness.

Mistakes in landscape maintenance:

• Affect plant health, and
• Destroy pleasing landscape designs.

Avoid Familiar Landscape Maintenance Errors

Below are five photos that show common and obvious landscape maintenance mistakes. These maintenance errors usually lead to reduced plant health and often, public safety.

Smart landscape gardeners learn to avoid these landscape maintenance errors. They make an effort to understand how mistakes in landscape care affect plant health and why these maintenance errors destroy even the most pleasing landscape design.

Pruning and Site Selection Errors

Photo #1 - Thuja occidentalis (Arborvitae, White Cedar, and Northern White-Cedar) in a New England strip mall (plaza or mini-mall), an area shopping center where the stores are arranged in a row, with a sidewalk linking up shop entrances.

This arborvitae suffers at first glance from substandard and somewhat whimsical shearing instead of pruning. Shearing causes interior needles, buds and branches to die from lack of light and air movement. The crucial problem, however, is incompetent site selection based on lack of knowledge about arborvitaes in landscape design.

Arborvitae trees can grow 25 to 40 feet in height and have a 10 to 12 feet spread. Their crowns usually show, when left unpruned, a more or less symmetrical pyramid-shape.

Pruning Errors

Photo #2 – A shrub collection with four-season color at the northeast-facing entrance of a professional building in Springfield, MA.

This sensibly chosen shrub collection suffers from rigid shearing of growth tips at arbitrary locations to produce artificial globe, pyramidal and box shapes. Selective pruning would prevent death of interior plant portions. It would also allow flowering of the shrubs like rhododendron and azalea in the group, and permit appearance of the shrubs' natural shape.

Photo #3 – A Malus cultivar (ornamental crabapple) sited appealingly and correctly in an east-facing location next to a professional building in Springfield, MA.

However, this crabapple has two trunks; one belongs to the rootstock/understock, a base to which a desired variety is grafted/joined, the other to the desired flowering/fruiting scion. The problem here is ignorance of what to do with offshoots from the rootstock below the graft.

In this instance, the offshoot grew to maturity. Manual removal, not with a string trimmer or herbicide, is important as soon as offshoots appear. Carefully dig around the sucker and cut it as close to the main root as possible. Remove the sucker with as many small fibrous roots as possible. Replace soil.

Mulching Errors

Photo #4 – A Hosta planted in a "mulch volcano" at a rest stop somewhere along the MA Turnpike. Trees planted in this rest stop area also modeled mulch volcanoes.

The problem here is another misunderstanding of the why and how of mulch use in the garden landscape. A few inches of organic mulch placed around the tree or shrub in a doughnut shape conserves soil water, keeps down weeds, and looks attractive.

Too much mulch, applied in volcano-fashion, kills trees and shrubs. Mulch volcanoes:

• Keep moisture in direct contact with the bark causing decay; and
• Encourage feeder roots to grow into the volcanoes; when mulch dries out plants become severely stressed.

Thoughtless and Unprepared Site Selection

Photo #5 – A two-year-old "hell strip" planting of "Stella d' Oro" daylilies and Hosta somewhere in MA.

There are four problems of omission in this situation:

• Sidestepping reality of heat and light radiation assailing what is normally a drought-resistant plant:

1. Asphalt pavement not only reflects, but also holds heat that continually bombards the plants;
2. Light-colored sidewalk reflects light and heat; and
3. Mulch reflects light and heat, while also holding heat that evaporates water available to plants from the mulch and soil.

• Unkempt plants so there is not a significant chance of rebloom;

• Retaining old bleached mulch, not replacing it with fresh;

• Withholding irrigation to alleviate extreme plant stress.

©Text and photograph by Georgene A. Bramlage. 2007. Reproduction without permission prohibited.