I grow trees at my Trees That Please Nursery in Los Lunas because I love trees, however my Life's work has been soil and what's needed to make it healthy, because without healthy soil we cannot grow a healthy tree, lawn, crop or ecosystem. In 1985 we purchased vacant land in Valencia County about 20 miles south of downtown Albuquerque, hoping to build a home we could raise our family in. My vision was a large yard, a secret garden trees, hiding places and a big lawn that my kids to roll in, climb the trees and find adventure. I soon discovered a major problem with the site in that the soil had been ruined by the decades of farming practices that had made the clay hard, full of sodium and salts and extremely alkaline. The surface would turn white during the winter revealing the White Death that would make it hard to succeed. A professor of soil science from New Mexico State University told me it was impossible to fix the site and that I should put a for sale sign on it and move away.
The following images are of the arboretum site as it is today which also has our Trees That Please production nursery on the grounds. As you can see the professor was wrong and the site is now a healthy sustainable ecosystem of carbon rich soils, with a collection of trees from all over the world. We succeeded because Soil Secrets has developed the molecular biology and products that can restore Nature's natural balance of what defines a healthy soil and our Arboretum and our nursery production system at Trees That Please proves this point.
Michael Melendrez
Director, Trees That Please Nursery
Director, Soil Secrets LLC
