SOIL & FERTILITY
We know and love soil science & the landscapes we fertilize look great.
Soil is alive, or it’s supposed to be. Trees and shrubs require symbiotic relationships with living soil microbes for almost all of their nutrient needs. A living soil is the digestive system for all terrestrial plants.
Soil microbes transform raw mineral and organic matter into plant available nutrients; in exchange, the microbes get sugars, starches, and other phytonutrient exudates from the plant’s roots. Many aspects of the managed, urban/suburban landscape short circuit this elegant, symbiotic system. Compaction, mismanaged moisture, lack of feedstock organic materials, and lawn chemicals all have negative consequences for a living soil. When we correct the flaws, amend the feedstock organics supply, and inoculate with the right microbes, success follows.
MYCELIAL LIFE LENSES
A fun and exciting tool to enhance plant health and produce edible or medicinal mushrooms is to install a mushroom patch or mycelial ‘lense’ under the canopy a tree or shrub. It is simply a thick layer of inoculated wood chips or straw installed on top of the root zone of the tree or shrub. The plants get all the nutrients provided by the booming microbiome and we get to pick the ‘fruit’ of the fungi.
Essential, beneficial microbes actually extend their reach up from the soil and cover the entirety of the above ground exposed surface areas of a plant—stem, leaf, and twig. Inoculating plant surfaces with all the right microbes and the foods they require for colonization.