I hired a man to mulch my 9 mature spruce trees and after wards ended up having 2 of them tip over with a minor wind.
I had told him I could not mow or trim around them and wanted them mulched. He toted himself as a landscaper. I assumed he knew what he was doing, but when I saw he had only come out about 2 feet from the trunk I didn’t think it was done right. To make matters worse he used plastic edging on the outside of the mulch and I think he may have cut the roots. He said that he always did it that way, but had never done it to a tree that big. I local nursery owner stood the trees up and recommended that the others that he did this too be staked. I spent over $1,400.00 and 25 hours of my time removing the edging, then removing the mulch and fabric due to him not removing the sod, removing the sod, filling in the crack from the edging removed with black dirt, replacing the landscape fabric and adding 2 more yards of mulch….to get the mulch out to the drip line. This man is stating he is not responsible for the trees tipping over, even though they did so with the edging still in the ground and a perfect circle cut around them that he did. He also states he did the entire job correctly. Please tell me who is right and why! He is my boss’s son and I dint want this to get ugly, but feel he should accept responsibility if he did this job as wrong as the nursery owner and several other reliable sources say he did!
Signed,
Frustrated Homeowner!
ps…he is demanding I pay him for his $600.00 mulching/edging bill or he will sue me!

the boss’s son is a total loss as a gardener….. bring your boss home with you and show him what was done to your trees….. the son , in effect, root pruned your trees in order to install the ‘edging’ that wasn’t even needed… and for sure not that close to the tree trunk!!…. let dear old dad know that you intend to sue the kid for the cost of fixing his mess and that he’s not about to be paid , either!!…. if dad sees it for himself, he won’t be able to be angry with you for yanking his son into civil court!….. the kid knows little about what he has done and your suit will be a way of teaching him!!…..

I hope the nursery’s help really saves the trees that fell… and staking was a good thing for the others… but you’ll need to give great attention to the ones that are newly righted… keep the soil moist there so the new roots can get thru easily and lock down the tree again….. no fertilizer!…. and watch closely for bugs…. a stress like this can leave the trees succeptible to attack….