Does Anyone Else Have a Blighted Area?

8 years ago

The area outlined in light blue in this photo is what I call my blighted area. The unmowed areas in the picture are where I am growing trees. The area just to the right of the blighted area is home to 6 or 8 healthy spruce trees. Apple and crabapple trees inhabit the area at lower right, and the area along the fenceline at the left is populated by maples and birch.

However only one tree (a crabapple) has survived in the unmowed area encircled in light blue. Its companion crabapples, and some lilacs, all perished early on. Before I began trying to re-forest this area, I planted a hill of squash there one year which produced two scrawny underweight winter squash. (Squash planted everyplace else on the property flourish.) In the summer this blighted area grows all sorts of weird grasses that grow nowhere else, as well as certain wildflowers (St John's Wart is one) while other weeds/wildflowers, plentiful elsewhere, do not grow there. My husband likes the looks of this area and the strange things that grow there, so I'm resigned to just leaving it be, with its strange grasses, limited wildflower varieties, and single crabapple tree.

However neither of us have a clue as to why this area is blighted, for lack of a better word. It's a mystery. Ledge underneath was suggested, but the entire wooded area on the hill behind it is growing on ledge, so that can't be it. When digging there to plant trees, there is plenty of topsoil, so that doesn't seem to be the problem. I wonder if something really toxic could have been dumped there back in the days when this parcel was part of a dairy farm. Or if something that was previously growing there left some sort of chemical "keep away" signal. I have been treating this area as I do other areas with "future compost" and used water from the goldfish pond, but to no avail. Does anyone else have a blighted area?

Featured Answer

barrett001

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

Yes! We have an area like that, a patch of lawn that doesn't seem to respond to amending of the soil. Nothing thrives there beyond a few varieties of weeds (horsetails mostly). I've tested the soil and tried putting in some 'hardy' plants--latest is lilies-of-the-valley--which die off within a year.

My husband feels that our patch had cars or possibly a boat parked on it in the past, & maybe toxic leaks blighted the soil....

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Comments (6)

asarum
8 years ago
I feel that there must be explanations for these situations. But I can only add a few thoughts to this. In addition to something toxic leaking from a vehicle, there is the more common problem of soil compaction from vehicles continually driving over or parking in a spot. There are various levels of soil testing and I don't know what type has been done or whether the soil testers were aware that you were having a problem with the site from which the sample came. Of course sophisticated soil testing would be more expensive.
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barrett001
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Excellent point about the compaction issue, Asarum! This may not be such an issue in Spedigree's case, but I feel fairly sure it could be at least part of the explanation for my particular bad "patch" of lawn. That bad swath starts next to the road, so it forms a natural route round to the back yard (a level stretch with no blocking trees), so I'm sure it was used for trucks doing any work needed in the back yard, such as tree cutting and replacing the cesspool with a proper septic system (--the latter was done just before we moved in 5 years ago)....
spedigrees z4VT
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Well it's good to know I'm not alone, I guess! Thanks for the replies. I think that motor oil or other toxins from vehicles is the most likely culprit in my case, as with yours, barrett001. I'm guessing used oil from farm equipment in my instance. I tend to discount the compacted soil theory because my blighted area is on a fairly steep uphill slope, so not optimal for parking, but it is possible.

Interestingly, when I did a search for trees that are tolerant of toxic (petroleum in particular) soils, many varieties of crabapple were on the list, so I guess that explains my sole surviving tree. It is remarkable how the area has such distinct boundaries. It extends a short distance into the neighboring "re-foresting" area, and two of the spruce seedlings I planted there suffered. One died early on, while the other is a stunted specimen today. Just on the other side of the invisible line, their spruce companions are all thriving and about ten times taller than the stunted tree.

If I had less land, a small yard for instance, then I would be digging out the old soil and replacing it, or building a raised bed filled with untainted soil, but as it is I have no interest in soil testing or attempting to repair my blighted area. It's more of a curiosity for me.
deanna in ME Barely zone 6a, more like 5b
8 years ago
As for compacting soil, we learned a couple of years ago that out west there are STILL wagon ruts from the Oregon Trail that will not support any vegetation. Yes, you can still see the actual Oregon Trail today! Talk about bad soil.
kitasei
8 years ago
Research bioremediation. It’s the new way of treating brownfields. There are specific plants that uptake toxins in soil. I believe sunflowers were on the list..
spedigrees z4VT thanked kitasei