hate to tell ya but that is the trunk, not the base. remove the extra mulch and dirt until you see the first roots that grow off the stem. then click.
Most Stem Girdling Roots were once small circling roots, innocent in appearance to most observers. If these roots are not straightened or cut in the nursery when trees are “stepped up”--transplanted into larger containers—this can result in a “multiple corkscrew” effect. The European nursery standards specify root pruning at every step, 4”-8” further out each time, to avoid these defects. The ANSI Z60 American nursery standards do not address this problem. The best way to expose and treat this condition is to wash off the nursery soil and correct the roots as you plant trees in the bareroot style. This process, called root washing, is growing in popularity with planters who are concerned with long-term tree health and stability. But even when roots are growing away from the stem, the tree is not yet out of the woods.
Root “balls”, the volume of soil packed inside a young tree’s packaging, have been getting rounder and rounder every year. Whether trees are grown in containers or dug from the field B&B (balled and burlapped), soil is commonly heaped around the trunk, where it does not belong. The trunk flare, where the trunk naturally turns into roots and the tree joins the earth, is all too often buried early in the growing process, and buried deeper yet at planting time. Some specifications still ignore the requirement in ANSI A300 (Part 6)-2005, 63.6.2.3, “The bottom of the trunk flare SHALL be at or above finished grade”. Instead, they instruct the landscape contractors to plant the root BALL at ground level, so the landscapers obediently follow this instruction, with disastrous consequences.
Arborists should have the ANSI standard—available from TCIA—in hand when they talk to growers and landscape architects and landscapers about deep planting. When these professionals see with their own eyes that the American Nursery and Landscape Association and the American Society of Landscape Architects are represented in ANSI, they will realize that they don’t have a stem to stand on when they bury trees. The entire green industry agrees that we should always be able to find the trunk flare.
