Quality Ontario Trees from Douglas Wood Large Tree Services
Healthy Trees
Douglas Wood Large Tree Services maintains a large inventory of quality large trees at our Rockwood, Ontario, yard. You get to choose the exact trees you want, whether you’re buying in bulk or are just buying a single tree. We also have associated nurseries throughout southern Ontario where we can access quality-grown nursery trees. These inventories can fluctuate throughout the season, so please call to inquire about availability before your visit.
How We Address Urban Soils
Most planting sites in urban areas share a common trait which is soil of marginal quality and quantity. Urban soils characteristics typically include heavy compaction, poor water infiltration and holding capacity, poor structure, and low organic matter and soil biodiversity. These conditions will affect not just your trees, but your turf and all plantings. Synthetic lawn fertilizers are often used to improve turf health but this can in fact have quite the opposite effect as it negatively impacts the soil micro-biology which will have a direct impact on any newly planted and existing trees.
Improving Your Soil Health
Douglas Wood Large Tree Services can improve the health of newly planted trees by improving the health of the soil in the immediate vicinity of the new tree. Two key steps to this involve the use of composted hardwood mulch and mycorrhizal inoculants.
The composted hardwood mulch we use has a very favourable C:N ratio (carbon:nitrogen). What this means is there will be adequate nitrogen availability to the tree and a healthy growing environment to develop populations of beneficial micro-organisms which the tree depends on for a sustainable cycling of nutrients. Over time, this leads to reduced soil compaction and improved soil structure and moisture retention.
A beneficial micro-organism which is important to the health of most tree species is mycorrhizae fungi. This significant soil micro-organism forms a mutually beneficial relationship with trees by increasing the trees ability to take up moisture from the soil and also the uptake of the important nutrient phosphorus. In return, the fungi receive its food source of carbohydrates from the tree. A mycorrhizae inoculant is added to the planting soils to establish this beneficial relationship.
Together, the composted hardwood mulch and mycorrhizae help improve soil functions providing a more sustainable landscape.