ID these roots!

17 years ago

Yesterday I was putting in a rock border between my flower beds and the driveway. As I scraped mulch back, I found what looked like roots in it. These were white, living, healthy looking roots, about as big around as 20 lb. test fishing line. The odd thing was that there wasn't any plant growing nearby. The nearest plant was a watermelon about 5-6 feet away. (Yeah, not exactly a flower bed. It was supposed to be a flower bed, but now it's a melon patch.) Do watermelon roots reach that far?

Right along the edge of the bed are daffodil bulbs. Hopefully they're far enough in that the rock border won't upset them. But would daffodils still have roots on the surface (or near the surface) this time of year? I thought they went dormant and were in complete "stop" mode until next year. I mean, it's safe to dig them up and store them in the cupboard, so I'd assumed that meant they didn't have active roots this time of year.

Is it possible it's some kind of fungus that looks like roots? The wood chip mulch was clearly decaying at a pretty fast pace. They really did look like roots though, with normal branching and thicker and thinner parts.

In related good news, I saw five or six worms in the course of my work, one of which was pretty big (4 inches) and very lively. I'm thrilled. When I dug up and prepped these beds last fall, in the ENTIRE area, I saw ONE worm. That was it - one worm, and it was tiny. This area has almost no manure on it, just sandy loam and leaf mold (both added and tilled into the present clay soil), with 3 inches or so of wood chip mulch on top. The mulch is why I'm putting the border in. The rain wasn't washing off the soil so much before I put the mulch on, but the extra mulch raises the level of the bed enough that a hard rain dislodges it into the driveway.

I've always thought that healthy soil had worms. When I didn't see any worms last year I was very disappointed and a little discouraged. I'm happy to see worms now. My melons are growing as well there as they are in the back yard where the soil has a lot more manure in it. That's a surprise. The watermelons in pure leaf mold have recently taken off in growth (they started growing about a week before the recent rains), but for at least a month they didn't grow at all. I'm still trying to figure out what works and what doesn't.

To settle my curiosity, what do you think is making those roots I see? Melons at a distance? Fungus? Daffodils? They aren't weeds, because I don't have any.

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Comments (4)

mulberryknob
17 years ago
Most people don't realize that the root systems of many plants extend far beyond the outer limit of leaves. I'm not certain that the roots you saw are watermelon, but I know we pull up healthy tree roots--redbud and black locust--thirty feet away from the drip line.

But concerning daffodils, just because the bulbs go dormant with no plant growth above ground, doesn't mean that the underground roots disapppear. Both they and the larger bulbs, Lycoris Squamigeri--Naked Ladies--have lovely fresh looking roots when I dig them in June, after the tops die, so that may be your mystery roots. Both these bulbs are poisonous so nothing eats them.
slowpoke_gardener
17 years ago
Gamebird, I will watch this post also. I have noticed the same thing in my garden this year. It was in a new ares that I had added this year. I had no compost so I added A HUGE amout of shreded oak leaves that had just set over winter, and tilled them in. I did not think much of it at the time, the "roots" looked very white and more flat than most roots look. As I said before I did not think much about it at the time, but I have had a lot of fungus problems this year.

I did not plant that row, the squash and penncraft crownvetch east if it died, the peppers to the west look good and are producing well, but have some yellow spots on the leaves that look a little like blight, plus some fruit drop. Also this row is not mulched and almost no grass has grown up in it. I have started spraying the plants with Daconil and trying to watch the watering more closely.

I hope we can get some insight into this. Larry
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gamebird
Original Author
17 years ago
I have 20 or so watermelons, a cantalope, a spot of dianthus and four crepe myrtles growing in the front circle bed. All are growing well and show no signs of any distress. I don't know what the roots are. If things change, I'll let you know.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
17 years ago
I am inclined to think it is the roots of something, and Daffodils and other bulbs do have roots even when their top growth is dormant. Since you have watermelons in the area, it likely is their roots....those melon roots can go out a long, long way.

There are some fungal growths that look somewhat like roots, but they tend to resemble dead, stringy brown roots, not white, healthy ones. If you had the types of fungi that look something like underground roots, you'd know it because it is likely you'd be having plant death in established trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials.

Dawn