Root Invasion

January 12, 2011 at 6:23 pm (Containers)
Tags: Container Plants, Gardening

“Root Invasion”, a copyrighted post, was written for my WordPress blog called Always Growing by Jan in Covington, Louisiana

It was rather puzzling. The last two rain storms left water standing in one of the two concrete containers that holds muhly grass. After the first storm, I just tipped the container over and let the water drain out, but this past Sunday when I discover water again sitting in just one container, I decided to investigate. Here is what I found.

 

 

Yes, a pine tree root has moved into the concrete container and stopped up the drainage hole. I couldn’t believe this. I know I moved these containers a bit during the summer and there was no root then. Also, that is one big root; it’s the size of my thumb. When I place plants outside for the summer, occasionally, I have had roots grow out of a container, but I have never had roots grow into a container before.

I actually had to use lopers to cut this root. A little reaming of the hole opened up some drainage. This, however, is only a temporary fix. When the weather warms up a bit, I will have to take out the muhly grass, clean out the roots, and replant the grass. Since these containers are so heavy, it will take the brawn of dear hubby to move them to a place off the bare ground. If I want to keep them in the same place, I was thinking I might just place a concrete square paver under them to keep the roots out, otherwise, they will have to be moved to another area (maybe the patio?) where they can be placed on concrete safe from invading tree roots.

This just goes to show, that even in the dead of winter, containers need to be tended to.

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