How do you make a new flower bed around an existing maple tree?
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If you do not want the trouble with taking out the lawn you can make your shape,line the area with landscape fabric,and do container gardening all around the tree.Final deep cover the fabric with rock or mulch and put a border around.
Very interested in this question, I would also like to put garden around base of my maple, but very worried that the new 'garden' might do damage to maple's roots.
Do I need to be worried about this?
If you're interested in a temporary, just to try it out, solution; my sister buys bags of potting mix and lays them flat around her tree. Then she slices open the top of the bags and plants annuals. She uses mulch to disguise the bags. This is a good way to test the area and you can still use the soil if you decide to build a bed. A more permanent solution would be to create a raised bed around the tree.
If you go the way of commercial landscape fabric, you should not have to worry about root damage. If you remove the grass, it shouldn't be a problem, either, so long as your tree is more than 5 years old. I have removed the grass and used commercial landscape fabric. I cut holes in the fabric for the plants and spread several inches of mulch or small rocks around them. Don't forget that you need shade plants under trees or they will fail. And if you have rabbits or deer, the plants should not be something they like to eat!
this is a comment from my pro friend. we were talking about this situation.
she has worked for mckay nursery for forever.
"Putting gardens or mulching around trees isn't the best thing to do for your trees.
Often people put too much too high and it ends up killing the tree.
I know people like to put gardens around or stone or other things around a tree because they don't like to have to mow or trim around it. But you are not helping the tree at all. If the ground slopes away from the tree. One could put soil even w the soil closest to the tree, a thin layer of mulch but not touching the tree, and as you go away from the tree, build up a little retaining wall and plant plants in the depth of the soil closest to the retaining wall. I see you have a bit of a slope by these trees to do that. A retaining wall of one or two high might work for you. But stay away from the tree roots!"
If you are trying to get color out that way. Use pots in areas near but not 'around' up against the tree to bring color there. You can set up a 'stone garden' near the trees, edge it out and put pots and other decorative items there to make an outside garden scene... but any time you start putting gardens in a ring around a tree, you are heading for trouble. I have worked in the gardening scene for over 40 years and can tell you of all the failures people do when they start to do "tree rings with gardens around them."
In addition to what Sam said, I think maple trees have some pretty tough root systems--it will be hard to get much of a garden going, and the shade under a maple is pretty deep as well.
I created a bed around my Maple a couple years ago. I measured out two feet removed the grass. The tree is an older Maple and there are roots everywhere. I put down soil and planted Hostas. Each year I try a different annual in the open spaces and have found that flowers that require partial shade work best under mine. The rising and setting of the sun reaches under the tree more than I originally thought.