Person adding soil backfill to a pine tree sapling - Anastasiia Krivenok/Getty Images When it's time to prep your yard's soil for planting a tree, grabbing some compost may seem like an obvious step.

We came home from a visit to the grandparents recently and found a tree in the backyard lying on the ground. One of the younger boys astutely pointed out that’s not how the tree was when we left it.