How to Treat Trees

Trees don't heal...

My summer job of mowing foreclosed lawns has started up. It is not bad job; and I have lots of leeway to take on my more preferred work of designing and installing sustainable landscapes.

The mowing gives me a great chance to get out and see what the rest of the world is doing in their gardens, both the good and the bad. In the case of the poor tree in the photo above, it is definitely bad.

Most people don't think of anything of tying or wrapping something around a tree. They assume because the tree seems tough, it will take it without a problem. But as you see, that is not always the case. In fact, it is rarely true. Even a temporary string put around a tree can cause damage to a thin barked tree if there is any movement.

Lots of damage is done by things that are on the tree for more than a day or two. I can't count the number of times I have tried to pull tree variety tags off of a tree and found that the tree has already grown around the tag. I have no choice but to leave parts of the tags still stuck in the tree. I have had the same problem with professional grade tree ties. These two items are made to be used with trees for a limited period of time, but need to be removed when that time is up.

Now, I am sure there is someone out there that is worried that I am telling them to quit using their hammock between their two favorite trees. And I am not--as long as they have a system to prevent damage and the trees can handle the stress created. This also applies to tree houses.

I can't go into the details of each and every way to protect a tree because there are many systems that are marketed to prevent problems. But here are a list of things to pay attention to:

• If you are wrapping or tying something around the trunk or a limb, make sure it spreads the pressure across the widest area possible.
• Wraps and ties are for temporary use only, know when to take them off. The maximum time for any of them is one year, this includes ties for staking trees down. If you don't feel the tree is ready to take the tie off, call in a reliable tree professional to help.
• If you are going to drill into a tree or puncture its bark in any way, make sure you get something that has a long reputation for safe use with living trees.
• Be carful getting advice from your hardware store, lawn man, or nursery. Each of these is an expert in their own area, but rarely do they have the long term experience with old trees to give the best advice.
• The best place to start is with an ISA (International Society of Arboriculture) certified arborist. Unfortunately, not all of them are as reliable as they should be, so don't be afraid to ask several sources for help, even those outside of the ISA.

And lastly, remember that a good tree is likely to outlive you, so it deserves the same time, expertise, and money that you expect to give anything that is worth keeping for a long time.

If You Must Poison a Tree...

If you must poison a tree, do it right! Most of my readers prefer organic methods, but once in a while a stump is in a difficult spot, cannot be visited regularly enough, or is maintained by someone so feeble that poisoning is a justifiable option.


Here are a few steps to doing the job right:


Consider whether poison is the best option. Most of the time a truly organic option is best. A thirty dollar pick and an hour swinging it would take care of this stump for good. The pick will last a life time, but a bottle of weed killer costs between ten and twenty dollars and has a limited shelf life.


Understand the biology of the tree. The wood where this cross has been cut has tubes transporting water and nutrients up the tree. The green layer under the bark transports water and sugar down into the roots. Put the poison only on the green portion where it will go down into the roots.


Minimise the amount of poison you use. If some is good, more is not better.


Plan for re-sprouting. You may find it is better to cut the sprouts down every two weeks, than to cut and poison them every four weeks.


Anytime you use a chemical, even an organic one, it should be the last viable option. What is viable is your determination, but chemicals should never be your first and most trusted options.

Spooky Halloween Tree

This looks good for the scary season, but 
will be bad through the life of the tree.

I appreciate the macabre spirit of Halloween as much as everyone, but making a tree into a permanent horror is simply too much.


For the rest of its life the tree will have problems with:

• Bad form caused by quick growing limbs.
• Branches constantly rubbing together and leaving open wounds.
• Rot and disease entering into the trunk and main limbs.
• A drastic increase in limbs falling. Some of them might be quite heavy.

I understand why the homeowner would think this is a good idea, the tree really is too big for the location. A better solution would have been to remove the tree and replace it with a smaller tree.

The worst horror of this botched job is that the pruner thinks he did great work. I am disappointed that someone who professes to love their job refuses to put the study into understanding the basic do's and don'ts.

I strongly recommend that if your friends get work like this, don't go to them for recommendations on a tree service.

I bid you peace and hope that your Halloween horrors last only through the season!

Bright and Shiny

One of the new denizens of progress in Provo. While I don't object to a new conference center, I wish they had designed it with more charm and less glitter and flash. This is especially important since the site is in the historic center of the town. 

A clue could have been taken from the buildings they demolished to make room for it. Color of the brick could have been matched in some of the glass that is not needed for its translucence. 

Larger sections of traditional materials could have been incorporated throughout the exterior to tie the building into the surrounding cityscape. 

Adornments echoing late 19th and early 20th styles could have been added to show respect for the past of the area.

Instead, Provo now has a new building that says nothing about Provo except they are desperate to be something else. Something new, something fresh, something--bland.

So there you have it. But then again, I'm just a gardener, maybe I have it wrong. Please, tell me what you think...

Garden Villains

A Russian olive is a beautiful and potentially
useful tree. Unfortunately birds are spreading 

this tree's seeds in neighboring yards, fields, 

and wild land areas.

I have some friends that are so busy being wowed by plants in general that they will tell you the virtue of dandelions, amaranth, and plantains.


And I don't have a problem with that. Many weeds are useful and only minor nuisances at worst. But there are many that will do extreme damage to landscapes and nativescapes. 


The weeds that are most annoying to me are trees. This is because most people see a tree and assume that it must be good because it is a tree. They refuse to see that the wrong tree is just as bad as the wrong anything.


The traits that make a tree a weed are the same ones that make any plant a weed:

• Invasive  The plant is aggressive and moves into new areas easily.
• Monoculture  A single species dominates an area, allowing for no competition or other niches.
• Selected Displacement  A plant that totally out-competes a valued (usually native) plant.
• Dangerous  A species that creates an unreasonable hazard. Remember all trees have some danger.

The weed trees in your area are likely to be different than the ones I am familiar with. You will only find them by researching and asking the right people the right questions.  To start with, you could ask the local urban forester, a park ranger, an ecology professor, or a local conversation group.

As for the right questions, ask if the trees you are interested in meet any of the criteria above. After you ask a few experts you will likely learn more about the tree than you ever thought possible.

Remember good gardening is not just hard work, it is the process of learning and finding better ways of doing things. Especially if you are doing something that is going to be around for a while!

Living with Diabetes

Tools I'm using to fight diabetes. Clockwise from
the top: blender, bread maker, no sugar added
apple sauce, extra virgin olive oil, and agave juice.

For just over a month I've been dealing with diabetes. That is to say, for a month we have known that the mysterious disease that my wife was fighting with for the previous six months is type 2 diabetes.

Now, as serious as diabetes is, we are overjoyed to have a diagnosis and we are happy to have a disease that is treatable. Heck, it is even curable. But it ain't gonna be easy. And whatever else, we are going to have to make big changes.


The first of these changes is to realize that type 2 diabetes is not a mystery. It is simply the body's inability to keep up with its weight. With that in mind it is easy to figure out the cure: eat healthy and exercise.


Of course the simple explanation gets complicated by the fact that we have to keep her alive long enough for the cure to be effective. Our bad food habits, the evil agri-food machine, and additional health issues also complicate the matter.


The biggest thing my wife needs is support. This comes not from patting her on the back and saying, 'You're doing a great job!' or from getting her the best and latest diabetic cookbook or even from cooking her the best, most luscious diabetic meals 'just for her'. It comes from living the lifestyle with her.


This means not eating the things she loves in front of her, making meals she can eat for the whole family, and cutting back on my excesses even while she is not around. Sure it is ok for me and my daughter to splurge when my wife is not with us, but these should be infrequent and cautious. 


And over all, I am grateful for the changes in me. As we all have been cutting back on the sugar I have found that some of my aches and pains have lessened, I feel better about myself, and I feel that the way I eat now better matches with my permaculture ideals.


As long as both of us stay the course, diabetes will end up being a win/win rather than a terrible curse.

Wall of Shame

A drive by a local church a couple of weeks ago proved that bad pruning is always just around the corner.

Plate 1: Workers cut through the branch collar past where the tree keeps it's own chemical protection against fungus and bacteria. While these trees still have some protection, it has been seriously compromised.

Plate 2: This cut goes beyond the branch bark ridge. Now all of the chemicals that protect the limb connection have been cut off. You can see an intact branch bark ridge on the set of limbs behind the cut. 

Plate 3: The 'fuze' at the base of the cut indicates someone doing the work that is not comfortable with the equipment he is using. While all tree trimmers have an occasional bad cut, the scrapes on the right side of the cut proves the trimer had bad control of his saw and did not care about the tree.

Plate 4: Two wrongs do not make a right. Three, four, and five don't either.

Plate 5: Two for the price of one?

Plate 6: This is a classic case of tree topping. If you look closely you will see that the major upper level limbs were cut to create a uniform hight. While the idea has appeal, it has the same logic as cutting off a child's feet to solve the problem of different shoe sizes.

Plate 7: The pruner could have made the cut closer to a side branch to encourage growth on that branch. As is, this stub will either die, or more likely, sprout four or five weakly attached branches.

Plate 7: One of these branches has a good cut , but the redirect branch is not big enough to fully support the larger branch that was trimmed. The rule of thumb is that the redirect branch needs to be at least one third the diameter of the removed branch at the point of the cut.

Plate 8: There are times when a bolt needs to be put in a tree for support. This tree is tied to a stake that is much weaker that it is. Even if that were not the case, the eyelet screw is flimsy enough to be pulled out of the tree.

If you prune trees you must study and train so that you know how to do it right. If you hire people to prune for you, you still need to study so you know who to hire.

One last thought: if your doctor practiced medicine like this landscape company practices pruning, what kind of shape would you be in?