Gardener sparks debate online after sharing photo of terrible landscape error: ‘I don’t know’

A homeowner in the Sierra Nevada posted a photo to a subreddit for tree lovers, showing a sweetgum tree they had planted.

While they were probably hoping for praise and recognition for all their hard work, what they received instead was a barrage of (to be honest, well-deserved) criticism.

“Sweetgum in the Ground. I raised this baby tree from a seedling when I lived in the central valley of California,” the original poster wrote. ‘Four years later, feet deep in the Sierra Nevada. Necessarily armored against deer, hares, rabbits and field mice. Planted on shale soil.’

The accompanying photo showed a photo of a sweetgum planted in the middle of a mulch volcano, with some apparently loose rocks dumped in front of it, and, most surprisingly, surrounded by a small moat filled with water.

The other members of the r/marijuanaenthusiasts subreddit – a humorously named forum dedicated to normal trees, not cannabis – were less than impressed.

“Boy, that seems like a lot of work to do something very wrong,” said one commenter wrote.

“What a labor-intensive way to kill a tree…” another wrote.

“I’m sure there are already a lot of comments pointing out that everything is wrong with this, but I still can’t wrap my head around how this tree is going to grow roots… between the hardware cloth, the gravel and the hill ..I don’t know anymore,” said another commenter wrote.

“I’m not sure ‘in the ground’ is the way I would describe it… good luck with that,” another agreed.

The comments went on and on.

What’s the hardest part about taking care of your garden?

Mowing the grass

Fighting weeds

Keep pests at bay

I don’t have a garden

Click on your choice to see the results and give your opinion

Mulch volcanoes – the practice of piling mulch high around the base of a tree, ostensibly to protect it – is a disturbingly commonplace phenomenon, even among many professional landscapers.

Instead of protecting the tree, mulch volcanoes tend to do that confuse tree roots to grow up and around the trunk, while the bark is moistened and fungi, rot and insects can damage it.

The moat is something else entirely: something the subreddit’s members hadn’t seen before and probably hoped never to see again.

As a general rule, when planting trees, you want to give the tree’s roots access to healthy, fertile soil. While the original poster here seems to have gone to great lengths to avoid that, the sheer amount of criticism they generated might encourage them to are changing a few of their planting practices.

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