Root Bondage

Here’ a view from above of what’s left of an apple tree’s roots growing in a wire basket.

Wire baskets around here are becoming required planting additions for perennials, shrubs, and trees. I once had a wire basket protecting the apple tree in the photo. The wire was four inches above the mulch. That didn’t stop a gopher from climbing over the wire to be encaged with all those succulent roots. The tree leaned over and simply died.

As the photo shows [I’m the only person I know of that has excavated the roots as they grow when using wire baskets] very few of the roots got out of the basket to explore a bigger volume of soil. For practical purposes, this tree should have been treated like a container plant—keeping all the moisture, fertility, and mulch within the basket’s diameter. BUT, the wire must extend 6-12 inches above the mulch to have a shot at excluding these pesty critters. Such a wire basket is very hard to make and isn’t to be found commercially. Your up to your own to make a Rube Goldberg machine-made, anti-gopher basket .

However, wire baskets can work with smaller plants.

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