Look at the trunk flare on this nice rivers purple beech we planted this morning. See how the roots are evenly spaced around the trunk, and they all grow outward? And the flare is ABOVE GROUND! This is how it’s supposed to be! I got this tree at Watercrest Farm in West Grove, PA. It was worth the drive. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to find really nice quality trees like this. This beech is the replacement for one that died. When we pulled the dead one out, it w

Don't panic. See 5/23/09 article.

Last winter I started a little landscape renovation project at my house. This patch of woods along my driveway wasn’t that pretty. There were a lot of invasive foreign plants like Norway maples, bush honeysuckle and multiflora rose, and many of the trees were mutilated by the power company because of the overhead wires. So I cleared away a lot of that stuff, and just left some of the nice understory trees like the dogwoods, blackhaw, and hophornbeam. I’ve replanted with w