Alan Titchmarsh has issued a stark warning to British gardeners, urging them to avoid planting trees too deeply. The 77-year-old gardening expert says the mistake could prove costly, with some specimens worth tens of thousands of pounds dying prematurely as a result.
Writing in Country Life, Titchmarsh described a recent tour with Tony Kirkham, former head of the arboretum at Kew, during which they observed numerous trees struggling to survive just a few years after planting. 'Some were already dead,' he wrote, 'towering specimens devoid of leaf and brittle of wood; swarthy skeletons against a forget-me-not-blue sky. The cause of the problem in each and every case was deep planting.'
According to Titchmarsh, container-grown trees or those transferred into containers later in their development are particularly vulnerable to changes in planting depth. He advises that the surface of the rootball should sit flush with the ground, 'not 7–11in deeper as was the case with so many of the sad specimens we saw'. He added: 'One can bemoan the waste of money on a tree that cost several thousand pounds, but, more than that, the loss of a formerly healthy specimen is agonising for a gardener to behold.'
The advice follows Titchmarsh’s previous guidance on lawn maintenance to deter rats. He recommended keeping grass short, explaining that rats 'like cover, they like shelter – they do not like close mown grass where they can be seen. They much prefer it longer.' He also suggested ensuring compost heaps have a solid structure to prevent rats using them as a 'central heated house'.
