A tree or shrub plant team's ground is its drip-line ring, not a bed
As recorded: A tree or shrub plant team's ground is its drip-line ring, not a bed.
Well established If you skip this, it still grows, just less well. The planner suggests it.
How it works
A tree's root zone expands for a decade and extends well past the canopy edge.
The evidence
Evidence: settled without a trial (root architecture).
Plant teams that rest on it
- Blackberry hedge
- Blueberry ring
- Currant ring
- Fruit tree ring
- Fruit tree ring (dwarf)
- Grape arbor
- Kiwi arbor
How this rule has changed
Every change is dated, newest first. The full record, with each reason, is in the data download.
- Wording made clearer
- Wording made clearer
- Added to the rules
Cite this page
Milpa Gardens. "A tree or shrub plant team's ground is its drip-line ring, not a bed." Evidence grade: Well established. https://milpa.garden/rules/tree-shrub-plant-team-s-ground-drip/
A garden planner built on graded evidence. Every claim states its evidence grade and links its sources on the page. Cite it with the grade, and add the date you read it.
How we grade evidence
- Well established
- The rule names its mechanism and is settled, by sources a person has read and checked or by plain arithmetic and geometry.
- Promising
- The mechanism is named and the literature backs it. A few questions are still open.
- A good hunch
- Plausible by its mechanism, but field studies are thin, so treat it as a lean.
- Contested
- The evidence points both ways, or no study has tested it, so the planner does not enforce it.
- Refuted
- The claim did not survive its sources. It is kept so the folklore can be answered.