There Goes My Mesquite Tree Again!
I'm undergoing a whopper of a monsoon thunderstorm right now, and the mesquite tree in my front yard just took a dive. This must be the third or fourth edition of this tree. It was screwed up from the start; my house was the last in the division to be completed and I guess that the landscapers stuck their last remaining two or three mesquite saplings in the same hole in what would become my front yard. That resulted in a multi-trunk tree very weak at the base. They'd eventually fall over in storms like this, I'd cut them up and haul them away, and a new tree would sprout out of the stump. Rinse, lather, and repeat.
posted by Cowboy Blob @ 5:31 PM
4 Comments:
At 10:45 AM,
BillyBudd said…
A few days ago I had to get out my chainsaw and cut up a huge branch that broke of a very large mesquite in my front yard. The next morning I walked outside and another huge branch had broken off, tis the season.
At 10:10 PM,
Desert Cat said…
It is likely that they never dug a big enough hole. Most landscapers are lazy and only dig a hole big enough to plop the pot in with a little space to throw in the dirt.
If you have caliche near the surface, or if the soil around where the tree was planted is hard packed, the tree has never had the opportunity to spread its roots out to give it stability. The key clue is that you never see wild mesquites blow over in a storm, even if they do dump a branch from time to time.
Another reason may be if you have irrigation on the tree and the lines are very close to the trunk, the tree may not have ever had reason to spread out its roots.
You might try digging a few holes 3-4 feet deep within a few feet of the trunk and backfilling with loosened, caliche free soil. Especially if you hit caliche, keep digging til you punch through it. This will give the tree someplace to send its roots to give it a better anchor. And spread out the irrigation lines (if you have any) at least six feet from the trunk to encourage the roots to spread.
At 1:11 AM,
Cowboy Blob said…
DC, the thing is that this doesn't fall over, roots and all. It separates at the ground level very near the original stump. I'm going to try to keep the next generation more tightly pruned until a stronger trunk can form.
At 1:25 PM,
Anonymous said…
You have experience, why don't you come over and trim mine? I've only got about 200' feet to clear for a power line!
-Red
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