One homeowner was recently forced to turn to Reddit for advice after hiring professional landscapers and ended up confused by their choices.
"Do I need to flatten this mulch mound?" the poster asked the members of the r/Arborists subreddit. "Newbie here. I've seen the mulch volcano posts and am doubting the landscapers that planted these now. Any advice?"
The landscaping choice in question is a dreaded mulch volcano — the popular but ill-advised practice of packing a pile of mulch tightly against the base of a tree so that it resembles a volcano.
While mulch volcanoes are, in theory, meant to protect the tree, in practice they do anything but. The mulch packed tight against the trunk often confuses the tree into growing its roots upward into the mulch instead of down into the dirt, where all the nutrients are. This can result in the roots wrapping around the tree, essentially suffocating it.
Mulch volcanoes can also cause the covered part of the trunk to rot, exposing it to disease and deadly fungi.
"I know this volcano mulch is almost like a meme in this sub, but I just wonder why landscapers don't know better? Like, don't you have to do at least a little bit of training to do that job?" wondered one commenter.
As this commenter pointed out, it seems to be common knowledge on the internet that mulch volcanoes are terrible for trees, and it is somewhat confusing that this information has somehow not made its way to so many of the people who are paid money to do landscaping work.
Until more landscapers, and the public at large, finally get wise to mulch volcanoes, it is on all of us to help remove them whenever they crop up.
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Trees aren't just pretty decorations — they help to clean the air, protecting the whole ecosystem and enhancing human life. There is no reason to waste a whole bunch of effort and mulch (which costs money) on something that will ultimately do the opposite of protecting them.
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