Let There Be Light:Plant Health Care and the Tree-Turf Conflict

摘要

We call it plant health care, but our focus as arborists is tree health care. While our clientsare interested in attractive ornamental and shade trees - after all, that is why they call us - they often are more interested in maintaining a uniformly green lawn beneath their trees. They also want turf heath care.This is where the problem with plant health care begins. Our clients want attractive trees and turf, and the two really do not do well together. Trees belong in forests, where they are associated with other trees and a ground layer of forbs, not grasses. Grasses belong on prairies, surrounded by other grasses and forbs, where a tree might be a distant dot on the horizon.