Things You Do that Can Damage Your Tree

Scott Gardner from Davey's Burnaby, British Columbia, office shares things you're doing to your trees that might actually be harming them without you even realizing it.
 
In this episode we cover:

• Vancouver's climate (0:40)
• Physical damage (1:40)
• Tying branches (3:23)
• Watering the correct spot (6:14)
• Tree topping (7:50)
• How Scott started his job (15:51)
• Scott's relationship with clients (17:03)
• Scott's favorite plant to plant in Western Canada (18:09)

To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.

To learn more about how to correctly water your trees, read our Tree Watering blogs.
To learn more about the risks of using an untrained arborist, read our blog The Risk of Using an Uninsured and Unlicensed Arborist.
To learn more about tree topping, read our blog, What is Tree Topping and Why Topping is Harmful to Tree.

Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
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Facebook: @DaveyTree
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LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company

Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!

Transcript

Doug Oster: Welcome to the Davey Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more, because here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer. I'm joined this week by Scott Gardner, district manager at the Davey Tree Expert Company of Canada up in British Columbia near Vancouver. Is that right, Scott?

Scott Gardner: Yes, we're in the general Vancouver area here in the Burnaby office.

Doug: I got a chance to visit up there, and I'll tell you one thing, way over here in Pittsburgh, we can't grow hydrangeas like they grow where you're at.

Scott: [chuckles] Yes. The climate here is very tropical, so we have a lot of moisture, a lot of rain, and everything just grows like wild.

Doug: That's the positive side of your climate. Is there a negative side for trees for your climate?

Scott: With all of the rain, you can have too much water in certain areas, so making sure that you have proper drainage is key. A lot of these sites, if they have-- Because there's a lot of mountains, they have a lot of retaining walls that will hold in water. So, you're on the side of a mountain, but there's water pooling, so making sure that proper drainage is there is important.

Doug: Well, that leads me to talking about what homeowners can do to hurt their trees. When we think of the things that they can do, and I've got lots of things in my mind, what's the first that comes to your mind?

Scott: The first thing that comes to my mind would probably be the physical damage. Using line trimmers or mowers, you want to get the grass cut super low, it's growing close to the tree, so you don't think about the damage that's being done to the tree. The cambium and the bark, all of that can be damaged from that, especially if it's a juvenile tree. I think that's one of the main reasons that we try to mulch around trees so that there's some space before the sod where the turf is growing, so you can use the line trimmer on the sod and keep the damage from the tree away.

Doug: Yes, you don't want to be banging your lawnmower into the bottom of your tree. You want a nice ring around there that you don't have to worry about getting close to your tree. That's important for its health, right?

Scott: It is. Also, if you put a ring of mulch around the tree, we did some studies and found that there's 20 times more fine root growth in mulch as compared to sod. So, it will encourage the growth and allow for a lot more nutrient uptake by doing it, along with preventing damage to the trunk.

Doug: What else are us homeowners doing that we shouldn't be to negatively affect our trees?

Scott: The other common thing that I find when I'm doing site visits is, people want the trees to grow in a certain way, so they'll use some tie to tie it up and pull a branch in a certain direction or keep it from falling over. If the ties are tied too tightly around the tree, what ends up happening is the tree grows into the rope, and it cuts off the flow of nutrients to the upper portion of the tree, girdling the tree at that point, so similar to an amputation. This is why any time you want to wrap something around a tree, you need to do it in a loose way and manage it, because if you don't take it off, what's going to happen is it's going to choke it out. The second thing is, if you have to tie it on, it's better to tie it on to a scaffolding branch as opposed to around the main trunk, because if you damage one of the scaffolding branches, it's going to only affect a small part of the tree. It's not going to affect the entire growth of the tree.

Doug: I had a Davey arborist here, we were doing a video together. I had a rhododendron that had fallen over, and he brought kind of like a-- It looked like a webbing, a sort of one-inch-wide webbing that he used to bring that back up, to right it, and so it wouldn't cut into the tree. Is that something you guys use too?

Scott: Oh, we use that product very, very regularly. We use it for pulling up small shrubs, tying together cedar hedges. The product is called ArborTie--

Doug: That's it.

Scott: Yes. It's a green webbing that is kind of disguised in the shrubbery, so it's not obvious that it's there. If you didn't know what it was, you wouldn't actually see it. The other thing that he would have done was, he would have done it in a loop so it's not wrapped tight around. The other thing that you can do as a homeowner is you can adjust the strap by moving it from the one location where it's tied to different locations. Once it's been on for a while and the tree has started to hold itself up, then you can take it off and let the tree stabilize itself.

Doug: Scott, this is how clueless I am. You mentioned that it was green, I didn't even think of that, of it being green so that you didn't see it. [chuckles] Oh, boy, I've got a lot to learn, Scott. When you're thinking also of homeowners, what else do they do to their trees that they shouldn't be?

Scott: Well, the ironic thing is we really encourage homeowners to water their trees, but watering the tree isn't as simple as just watering the tree. If you take the hose and you put it on the trunk, in the homeowner's mind, they're watering the tree, but the trunk of the tree wants to be dry, the roots want to be wet. To be doing the watering, what you need to be doing is you need to be going out to where the drip line is, so the outer portion of the tree. Trees work like umbrellas, when it rains, the water goes out to the sides and pools at the outside. The trees know that, so there's a bunch of fine roots right at that area that are really good for uptaking the water.

The other aspect of watering that's important is, if you take the hose and you spray it for 15 minutes, and you're like, "Okay, it's good." What you're missing is the roots go down three feet, and you need the water to get in there slowly and penetrate deep for it to be effective. Especially on hot summer days, what happens is the top part of the tree or the top part of the soil will evaporate the water. You need to get it down deep so that the trees can actually hold on to that water and use it during the heat of the day to cool down.

Doug: Yes, good advice, definitely. We talk a lot about this on the podcast, watering and fertilizing, but there's something else I want to ask you about that I see here and there, and it's when the tree isn't planted in the right place and it's getting too big, people just want to cut the top of it off, right?

Scott: [laughs] Yes, topping trees. People, when they see a large tree, they're afraid, and the most common way of dealing with it is, "Let's cut the tree in half." Let's cut it down to whatever point they feel more comfortable with. What they don't realize is a tree is going to grow a certain height, and it's based on the genetics that it's going to become that large tree. What we have to explain to them is, if you don't like having a tall tree in your house, you should probably remove it. If you are going to keep it, this is when you should be fertilizing, watering and keeping it healthy. People always say, "You know what? I don't want to fertilize the tree because I don't want it to grow bigger." What they don't realize is it's going to grow bigger either way. Now you're just going to have a big, weak, dangerous tree.

On the flip side, if the tree has been topped, then there's a host of issues that arise. Where the new growth is on the top of the tree, it's connected in a very weak way, and because it was topped, there's rot that develops in that area. Now you have a weak connection at a high point with new growth, and it takes usually between 5 to 10 years before there's enough growth on the top that it has enough leverage and weight to fail. People don't realize that 5, 10 years later, they're creating a problem for themselves, or if they sell the house, for the next owner, right? Some people say, "You know what? We'll top it every year. We'll manage it." What about when they sell the house? Is the next person going to take on that responsibility? Do they know that they're taking on that responsibility? That's why it's a bad idea all around.

Doug: Well, Scott, I'm glad you brought that up because I've told this story before on the podcast. My son bought one of those houses, and it's one of those houses where a Chuck in a Truck was coming every year and topping a maple tree, two maple trees. I got in trouble because the day they moved in, I looked out the back door and I saw these maples, and I just went crazy. My daughter-in-law was like, "We just moved in." I said, "Well, I understand that. I'm not telling you it's bad for you, I'm just telling you that whoever's doing this is doing everything wrong and just doing it to make money off people."

It's one of the stories I tell people to convince them, get a certified arborist to do your work. Get a certified arborist to look at these trees, because I found out since then, as I'm walking the baby through the neighborhood, this guy's been working all through that neighborhood, and I see his work, and it's awful. It's the worst thing you can do to a tree, and it drives me nuts, and I bet it drives you nuts too.

Scott: To clarify, is he topping the trees, or is he pollarding the trees?

Doug: Tell me the difference between those two things. Because he's basically chopping the top off, and then these water sprouts or whatever you call them are coming around that, and then he's coming back the next year and just cutting them off.

Scott: There is a-- I think it's an English pruning technique called pollarding. With this, water sprouts develop, and rather than cutting the main trunk, you just prune the suckers back to where it grew, and a ball will develop. Over the years, if you keep on doing that, you need to do it between one to three years. You need to do this, taking all of the sprouts off, but the difference between pollarding and topping is if you're cutting the main trunk. If you're developing balls and you're doing it on a regular basis, it can be a really good pruning technique, but there's a lot of responsibility in that type of pruning. You can't just start pollarding a tree after it's been in your yard for 50 years. You need to develop it right from the beginning so that you don't get the decay.

Doug: These are big trees that I see all over the neighborhood that are just-- There's no balls like that. It's just chopped-

Scott: Flat.

Doug: -right off from the top. That's an interesting thing. I've never heard of that before, that type of pruning.

Scott: Yes, it's very common in England. With that, I know in British Columbia we have rules where landscapers can only prune up to-- I think it's 12 or 15 feet, so a lot of landscapers have done this type of pruning on trees, especially in large complexes, so that they can guarantee that they'll keep that work. But you walk into them, and like you say, you look at it and you're like, "This guy is just trying to make some money here," and they're having to do this every year. Better to plant the proper tree for the landscape and let the tree grow naturally, I think. From an arborist perspective, I think that's a lot more beautiful and a lot less maintenance required.

Doug: What do you think that looks like when you're seeing that all over your area? Again, they want to keep the work, it is a legitimate pruning technique as far as a tree's health.

Scott: Yes, it is a legitimate pruning technique, but it's like some people like it, some people hate it. There's split things, but the thing is, we end up having to come in and deal with trees that were pollarded, and then they left it for 8, 10, 12 years, and now they're like, "Oh, well, we did it before. You can see where we did our cuts." I have to tell them, "I know it was pollarded, but you've waited 15 years. This is a full-grown now. It's a mess, and I can't take it back to that point, not ethically," so it creates more problems than it actually resolves.

Doug: You brought up something interesting there. When you're looking at that tree and you say, "I can't do that ethically," that's why a certified arborist is so important, because things have to be done right for the health of the tree.

Scott: Honestly, there are a lot of jobs that I have to walk away from where people have an idea of what they want to do. I'm the arborist, I'm certified, I've been working in this for years, so when I give them suggestions, if they're not willing to take those suggestions, I can't do work with them. The thing is, people really need to understand that we don't make rules and we don't make these decisions based on our personal opinions. This is based on science, this is based on the growth of trees. This is based on years of industry working on these things. It is valuable for people to go to people like us to get advice on their trees, to get us to do the pruning so that it's done correctly, give them pointers on how to do it themselves.

Doug: You don't have to tell me. Again, I bring this up all the time on the podcast. I live in an oak forest, so I am so happy to have my Davey team looking over these trees and filling me in on what should be done and what shouldn't be done. It makes my life so much easier. Tell me a little bit about for you, how did you get into this?

Scott: Honestly, I was out of a job. My best friend got hired, and I was like, "That sounds like a fun job." We were hired the same day, and I started as a groundsman, and I just basically went from one part of the job to the other. I slowly climbed the Davey ladder, and Davey has been a really good company for me because of the training that Davey has. We support our employees, and we really strive to have them work safe and knowledgeably. I'm a ISA Board Certified Master Arborist, I have my Tree Risk Assessment, my Municipal Specialist, and a host of other certifications. Basically, while I've been here, I've just taken every opportunity to learn everything I can. I think I've been with the company for eight years now, and there's still things I'm learning every day, which makes it so that I enjoy coming to work.

Doug: Tell me a little bit about your relationship with the clients.

Scott: Relationship with clients-- When I go to a site, I feel like I'm educating my clients. They have an idea, something that's going on in their landscape that they need help with. They need information, or they need us to do something that they can't do. When I'm there, I figure out what they want, and then I figure out whether we can do it and I create a solution. Also, I work on information, in sharing things that they didn't know about. Identifying pests in the landscape, teaching them about watering-- Just having those conversations, so that when they're asking, "What can I do to help my tree?" I can say, "Well, you can fertilize, but you can also water. And if we do some pruning, that cultural practice will make it so that you have a healthy landscape." That's usually the interactions that I have with most of my customers.

Doug: That's awesome. Before I let you go, I want to pick your brain a little bit because I don't know anything about the trees out there. Tell me about a couple of trees that you love planting that might not be used as much as they should be, that when you get the right place for it, you can sneak it into the landscape. What are we talking about?

Scott: Okay. My favorite one is English laurel. It's English laurel because everything grows really wild here. We have a lot of hedges, so we have a lot of cedar hedges, we have a lot of yew and laurel hedges. For me, I love the laurel hedge because it grows between one to three feet every year. You can structurally create any shape you want, and it will fill in. You can cut it to sticks, and it will leaf back out from latent buds, so with this, this is-- The reason I love it is, when it's mismanaged, we can go back and we can fix it, and we can work with it. Now, when we have cedar hedges, when cedar hedges are mismanaged, then we have to remove the hedge, grind out everything, put in the exact same hedge. The customer has to pay $10,000 to $20,000 to do this whole project, and they're left with the same hedge that they had in the first place. This is why I love laurel.

Doug: All right, Scott. Great stuff. Thanks for all that information, thanks for your time. That was a lot of fun.

Scott: Yes, I enjoyed it too. It was really good to meet you, Doug.

Doug: Tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Do me a favor, subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss an episode. Next week, we're covering an important topic, dealing with summer diseases in trees, learn what's out there and how to fix the problem the right way. As always, we'd like to remind you, on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

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