In a society that expects immediate results, even if it means perverting the nature of a living entity to try to fit an arbitrary aesthetic ideal, restoring natural fertility to soil can seem to be a futile exercise. Plants don’t necessarily respond immediately to soil improvements. Sometimes, the results can be so subtle, it’s hard to even notice progress. However, for anyone willing to give the time required and pay attention, the results are not only obvious, but substantial and long lasting. I had an experience recently that outlines the benefits of taking the long term approach.

About a year ago, I got a call from a woman, who by good fortune, became a client. She had a yard that was primarily landscaped with California Native plants, but not all the plants were doing that well. She had made her own commitment to landscape without chemicals, found me and asked for help. We worked out a program of soil improvement to help bring her plants back to health. The client’s yard is outlined in the Native Plant Garden project in the Project section of the Mauby All Natural main web site. Specifically, this article is about the trees in this landscape.

There are two native oak trees in the landscape. One of these oaks, the ‘back’ oak, was saved from being cut down at a development site. It was dug up and installed in my client’s landscape. The ‘front’ oak was a container plant brought in from a nursery. On my first visit, the homeowner had just hired a tree care company to perform a root injection feeding. The fertilization program was to consist of quarterly injections of soluble fertilizers and the first feeding had just been performed.

After the injection fertilization, the front tree responded well, greened up and leafed out nicely. The back tree, did not respond well. The program I created for the trees, did not include fertilizer. I needed to improve the root systems of the trees. I’ll always be grateful to the homeowner because when the fertilizer wore off, the trees dropped many of their leaves, but she kept the faith. One of the main things I needed to do was get mycorrhizae reestablished in the root zone. I dug some narrow trenches radiating out from the trunk of the trees to the drip line. I filled these trenches with compost that had been inoculated with mycorrhizal spores collected from under trees of the same species. After inoculating, a 3″ mulch layer was added under the trees.

I monitored the trees over the next few months. The lack of rain over the winter hindered the colonization of the mycorrhizae. The trees needed to be irrigated throughout the spring to ensure there was sufficient water. There was progress I could see while monitoring the soil, but the trees were still looking a bit sad. The homeowner actually made the decision to remove the back oak because it did not appear to be responding.

During a recent visit, I was surprised to see the back oak was still in place. It was looking good too. Better than it ever had. When talking to the homeowner, she told me they noticed such a positive response over the spring months, they decided to keep it. I have to say, even I was surprised at the tremendous difference in the appearance of the tree. It’s a good feeling to see such a majestic plant respond so well and head on the road to recovery. There’s still more work to be done, but this is now one happy tree.