ronnyb

Around here, the first thing they do when building a new subdivision or housing project is to strip off all of the topsoil. It's piled up, run through a screener and sold off. After the house is built, maybe 1 to 2 inches of topsoil is layed over the top of the subsoil and turf is replanted. We replace alot of young trees that are maybe 2 years old that didn't survive. When we replant, we dig the hole upto 4-5x the root ball, gradually sloping upwards. The subsoil here is a very thick, alkaline clay, so we do slightly amend the backfill soil with compost. We have the best success rates with smaller diameter trees, the hard part is getting the homeowner to understand why the trees we are putting in are not 15 feet tall, but only 6 to 7 feet tall. The smaller trees acclimate to the site much better, and we find that alot of the trees that were originally planted by the landscape companies are in a hole that is only slightly bigger than the root ball, or don't have any of the wire, string, or burlap removed. Trees in this type of depleted soil are going to need additional care as they mature, we like to use compost tea, or vertical mulching and backfilling with compost made from leaves.