Urban landscape soils are often compacted by construction activities, thereby restricting plant establishment. Common approaches to improve plant establishment on compacted soils are to till soil before plant installation, to apply compost, or to choose plants that can tolerate drought. This research was undertaken to evaluate the relative importance of...
Preplant compost application increased plant growth and visual appearance of a wide variety of perennial landscape plants. The positive plant growth response to compost was similar for com-post left on the soil surface or compost incorporated via rototilling. Compost application did not alleviate soil compaction. Plant growth response to compost...