Pacific Northwest Gardening: another novice inquiry ...., 1 by estreya

estreya wrote:
Thank you, Pixydish! I do have rhododendrons, so i'll pull the mulch away from those as well.

The dying tree isn't one of the dogwoods. It's a really huge tree to the rear of the property which for some unfathomable reason wasn't cleared along with everything else when the developers rolled in. They left five such trees, massive, ugly, half-dead trees (although i'm sure they were once glorious when surrounded and protected by all the pine), three of which we've already removed because they were a house hazard. The two in back we've been procrastinating over, but i want to get started on beds back there now so they're coming down!

You can see one of the poor dogwoods i was suffocating in this picture, along with the horrible half-dead trees. They've snapped down quite a bit during the winter storms (not the dogwood, it's fine!).