Beginner Gardening: Natchez crepe myrtles look bad. Will they recover?, 0 by Diana_K

Diana_K wrote:
At this point, then I would bring in whatever material you can handle, and add it to the areas surrounding the trees. Maybe all it will be is a few bags of bark or something. Whatever. Do what you can to start creating a better place for them, even if you cannot get the whole raised planter area done.
I sure understand how hard it is to move materials like soil. Compost, mulch and similar materials are a lot lighter. Summer is coming, and the trees will be more demanding of water through the summer. If there is ANY way you can build berms to hold some water and mulch to keep the soil a bit cooler and hold the water the trees will really benefit.
Then, when more help is available, keep on working on the raised bed idea.

Here is a way to make a berm. It is not pretty, but it will help.

Get some of almost any material. (Shown as orange under the berm) Something like the cheap header board that is sold in tight rolls. Bricks, rocks...
Make a circle with this material around each tree, about twice as wide as the container was.
Cover this with soil (dark blue) that you dig up from somewhere else in the garden. (Does not have to be very far away- no need to carry it very far).
The header or other material under the berm will help hold the soil, keep it from washing away, and the soil will hold some water to help the trees. If the soil does wash out, the header will still sort of hold water until you can fix it.
Mulch (brown) near, but not touching the tree. (sorry- just saw a typo in the drawing)
Light blue represents the water.



This message was edited Apr 17, 2014 8:57 PM