While spending time outdoors is a known mood-booster, a landscaping team at an office park in Washington state put a damper on one local's day by making a common but potentially deadly mulching mistake.
In the r/arborists community, a Redditor posted a photo of a flourishing tree with its base surrounded by mulch piled high in the shape of a volcano.
"Every tree in the office park got this treatment," the original poster shared.
Whereas mulching with organic materials, such as wood chips or leaves, is one way to ensure plants and gardens receive ample nutrients, volcano mulching can create too much moisture around trees, as detailed by the Penn State Extension, which speculated that some landscapers might be trying to save time by quickly dumping the material.
The practice can also cause tree roots to grow up rather than into the soil. Ultimately, the result is a weaker tree that is more vulnerable to rot and diseases.
Even though volcano mulching is not out of the ordinary, commenters on the original poster's thread seemed well informed about its pitfalls.
"I want this to be fake so bad," one person wrote, to which the OP replied, "Sadly not fake, I drive by this travesty every morning, a dozen or so trees, same sized mound on each, no gap."
"Please tell me you called someone about it," another said, explaining how they took action in their community by providing education about how to properly mulch in a doughnut shape.
In addition to providing aesthetic appeal and cooling shade, trees are an integral part of ecosystems that support all manner of creatures, including pollinators, making their protection beneficial on multiple levels. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than one-third of all food crops require pollinators to propagate.
Furthermore, as someone else pointed out, volcano mulching can also lead to an expensive headache, basically negating any potential efforts to reduce maintenance costs and effort (something that can be accomplished at a low cost with the cultivation of natural lawns).
"Someone needs to inform whoever is in control that [this] will lead to dead trees, liabilities for the property owners, and possible lawsuits, and they should immediately remove the mulch volcanoes," the commenter wrote.
"Trees need to breathe," another person said. "It's really sad to see that."
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