Re: test

--- Bill Meyer <njhosta@hotmail.com> wrote:
Yet another problem with natural gardening is tree
roots. Without digging, the more vigorous of these
will win out in a battle with hostas.
Those fancy hybrids are not equipped to wrestle for
nutrients with the roots of a large maple. The tree
will win every time.

Butch says; If you're planting under maples then you
have a difficult problem to overcome. If you water or
fertilize the hosta only you are begging the maple
roots to come to the hosta. I visited the hybridizer
(Warwick) when he lived in Michigan where he had a
large stand of maples that he wanted to plant under.
He setup an elaborate watering system to water the
hosta only and the maple roots came to the hosta to
get the water. His final method was to water the whole
area so the maple roots did not accumulate around the
hosta.

There is one method for tree roots that has fair
success. Planting bags sprayed with "spin out". Turn
them inside out and it will repel the tree roots. Spin
Out is a copper compound, copper sulfate I think, that
plant roots will not grow through. It requires large
bags for large hosta so go to horticulture supply
house and look for the cloth that is treated with spin
out that is used for walkways in greenhouses to keep
down weed growth. Then make a large enough bag for the
particular hosta. Spinout side down, to keep the tree
roots out.

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