There are certain things that I see on a regular basis that are a bit questionable with regards to plants in the general landscape.

The first one is best shown in a picture, shown below.

In this photo are the roots of a lovely big Ficus benjamina, commonly known as a weeping fig. The roots here are not ones you normally see on a fig tree, they are more a bit squashed flat and damaged. This is caused by cars parking over the roots of this tree every day for years. This doesn’t do anything good for the tree, especially as there is a large amount of concrete and tarmac over the rest of the rootball of this tree.

While there isn’t a lot to be done in the situation where the tree is going, and the fact that it appears to be happy, it’s better to have the tree than not, of course. It does show why there is a need to plant plants in the correct place. Fig trees should be planted with plenty of space to grow into the wonderful trees they are and should be. For a smaller space, use something else!

Next thing I am going to moan about today is a combination of chemical use and using paving stones and bricks for footpaths. I’ll start with the pavers. They are an easy option for a path and can be picked up quite cheaply too. They also don’t look too bad on the whole and do the job. The trouble with them is that weeds are able to grow in the cracks between the individual pavers really easy. Which leads to chemical use-spraying the weeds is one thing, and one that I really don’t like at all, but there is a lack of care when spraying which I dislike even more.

Take the example in the photo below. This path, to the right of the picture had weeds in it, which are now gone. The problem is with the grass, which has died off next to the pathway. This is due to the herbicide being used also landing on the grass. This looks ugly. For me, the path needs replacing because, as sure as day follows night, weeds will grow through the cracks and the whole cycle starts again.

When I talk about this, I often get looked at like I have at least two heads, normally closer to thirty! They either don’t care or are happy that the weeds are out the path, which is why I bring it up really. If you think carefully about the materials used in such a situation before putting them into your garden, you won’t get as many weeds, no dead grass and no chemicals all over the place if maintained well (not just the perceived ‘easy’ option).

Another, and final for today, annoyance of mine is tree planting situations that I see when I am out pottering in general. There are so many bad examples, but I’ll show you just one located at a fairly local public park to my house. The local council has had several gum trees planted in a row and covered the soil surface with tarmac with only a small area of soil around the trunk.

With trees, the roots spread further than the crown (the leaves and branches). Here, there isn’t much soil area where those roots would be so I question how well these trees will grow.

I understand that for a public park you need to have accessible spaces, this can be done while also allowing water to enter the soil, for example by using a boardwalk type thing.