Best Trees for New Homeowners - Budget Friendly and Low Maintenance

Taylor Judd from Davey's East Denver office talks about important factors to consider when planting a new tree and his recommendations for the Colorado area.

In this episode we cover:  

• Summer rain and heat stress in Colorado (0:50)
• Growing trees in Colorado (3:22)
• Should you add fertilizer when planting new trees? (4:54)
• Root flare (6:01)
• Handling a grade in your yard (6:57)
• Mulching new plantings (7:24)
• Colorado Tree Recommendations: Burr oak, Redbud, Sensation maple, Chanticleer pear (8:55), (10:50)
• Emerald ash borer on the West Coast (10:11)
• Conifer trees in Colorado (13:18)
• Right Tree, Right Place (14:14)
• How Taylor became an arborist (15:41)
• How Taylor works with clients (17:41)

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

To learn more about different types of soil your landscape could have, read our blog How to Keep Soil Healthy For Your Plants.

To learn more about landscaping as a new homeowner, red our blog Landscaping Tips For New Homeowners.

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

Connect with Doug Oster at www.dougoster.com. 

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 more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees podcast we know trees are the answer. This week I'm joined by Taylor Judd. He's a sales arborist in the East Denver office for the Davey Tree Expert Company. Our topic is best trees for new homeowners and budget-friendly and low-maintenance trees. Taylor, how are you doing today? Except I heard it's going to be hot there today.

Taylor Judd: It is going to be hot. Over 100, but thanks for having me, and this is a hot topic right now. We're going to start fall-planting here pretty quick in the next month.

Doug Oster: Tell me first about the heat stress. What has that done for your trees there this summer? What has the summer been like for you guys?

Taylor Judd: This growing season most moisture I've ever seen here and even some of the Colorado natives that have lived out here 50 plus years. I've seen the most growth I've ever seen on trees, and then as far as heat, it seems to be just finally happening here towards mid-August and maybe we'll see 90s in September too. Really the main thing I'm seeing now is just all this growth the trees have put on. Whether or not they're going to be able to sustain the growth, it's not looking great as far as that. It's great that they put on this abnormally-- growth for this area is, typically for example on a spruce tree, three to four inches and I've seen six to eight inches even on the spruce out here this year. The heat stress I don't know if it'll be that much of an impact in this area.

It just depends how long. If we're going into October with this heat then that would be an issue. You can see some wilting and things like that right now, just droopy leaves, and really the best thing would be just deep watering intermittently. Once a week max.

Doug Oster: Are you able to hide in the office when it's going to be record-breaking heat or do you have to go out there?

Taylor Judd: No, I'm constantly doing estimates. Hitting the pavement.

Doug Oster: With all the rain you got this year and all that growth, that sounds to me like a good thing but you said there might be some negatives in there.

Taylor Judd: There could be some negatives. The trees use all their resources and put on an abnormal amount of growth and then sustaining that new growth I think will be hard. It depends what the winter brings. Typically here they always say Colorado gets a lot of snow, and sure out by my house in the foothills, we get a lot more snow than Denver I would say, but typically, significant snows wouldn't be until January-February time frame. Let's say people get their irrigation shut off in October which is pretty typical and then we don't get a significant moisture until January, that's a long time for these trees to dry out. That's a little worrisome but at the same time, even when it's been this hot, we've still been getting afternoon storms every day. Sometimes not a whole lot but it's something. Pretty consistent rainfall.

Doug Oster: Let's talk a little bit from Colorado's perspective of best new trees for homeowners. On this podcast, the mantra is right tree, right place. We know that, but what comes to mind for you? Tell me a little bit about growing trees in Colorado.

Taylor Judd: Sure. We should start with the soil. Soil's alkaline here. Typically plants like acidic soils. One of the issues here is just plant selection, granted there's a lot of trees that just don't work here. One of my recommendations would be a bur oak. Just throwing one out that I've seen do well. It does really well in alkaline soils. A hardy tree. Typically good structure and all that. Then location is huge. The bur oak can take full sun so that would be a good front yard south side type tree and then as far as understory trees, if you have mature trees already and you just want to plant some smaller ones, a redbud would be a good selection for that. With the clay, soil the alkaline soil here, it's really important that you go legit like two times the size of the root ball when you're planting.

I see a lot of a lot of folks and landscape companies that'll get an auger, they'll drill in and it's about the same size width as the root ball and then, "Well, it's a perfect fit, let's throw it in," and that just doesn't work well here. You got to really break up the soil since it's so compacted.

Doug Oster: I know in general when we talk about planting trees, we don't add anything to the soil, but in the situation where it would be real clay, if you worked up that hole twice the size of the root ball would you put any organic matter in there or that's a bad idea?

Taylor Judd: I typically see that being a bad idea just because if you were to happen to, let's say, put fertilizer in with your planting, that can actually make the trees too comfortable in their plant ball, in this rooting ball and they won't need to elongate and reach towards water and nutrients and whatnot. I don't recommend fertilizing at the time of planting. The best thing is just to use the native soil that's there, don't add any, and unless there's a steep grade or something, you want to do a little backstop, a berm, or something like that, but no, just digging it two times that root ball size and then getting the air pockets out after you do that will help basically those roots in the root ball elongate and get out of their comfort zone.

Doug Oster: One of the mistakes that I do hear that homeowners make is not digging a big enough hole but also, from doing this podcast, planting their trees too deep.

Taylor Judd: Yes. What you want to look for is a root flare. The best way to describe it, your tree shouldn't look like a telephone pole in the ground. Right at the base where it meets the root ball, there's a flare there and you want to be basically lik an inch and a half above that. That's where you want to see that flare. Planting too deep is huge, especially with our soils. The trees already are not supposed to be here in general. A cottonwood along a waterway, that would be your native tree in this area. You got to do whatever you can to plant at the correct height. Depth is huge as well. Another big thing is, like I said, with the grade. Folks that have somewhat of a grade, let's say in their front yard going down to the street. I actually recommend putting in a berm on that side to help retain water because if it just runs off into the street it's not going to absorb anything.

Putting mulch, back-fill just on that one side can help in those situations. That leads me into another thing which I'm big on is mulch, especially new plantings, even existing trees. Especially ones that you see a lawn mower damage and weed whacker damage that is huge at the base, one of the best ways to prevent-- let's say you have an HOA, some commercial company comes through really quick, they're not taking their time or anything, if you mulch around your trees, there shouldn't be any reason that they're going to be string trimming near there if the weeds are down. You just put mulch around there. That'll prevent compaction as well as just damage to the root flare. A new planting that's pretty detrimental.

Doug Oster: Weed whacker banging into the bottom with a mower, that sort of thing. We talk extensively about mulch. Mulching the right way, not volcano mulching. How much mulch and how far out?

Taylor Judd: The drip line of the tree, the outer skirt of the canopy, that would be a good place to put the mulch out too, and then I recommend two to four inches of mulch and no more than that. You don't want to overdo it. The only other circumstance where I'd say I add an excessive amount of mulch is during construction. Basically trying to save a critical root zone on a tree to help prevent compaction. Adding a lot of mulch in those situations, but for new planting, two to four inches of mulch out to the drip line.

Doug Oster: Tell me about the bur oak because I know nothing about it being from East Coast.

Taylor Judd: Got you. The bur oak is actually a very sturdy tree in comparison to some other oaks. It usually has a strong central leader, one stem going up, good scaffold spacing on its branches and is a very good full sun tree. Typically at least, they grow laterally and they can be wider than they are tall. Good shade and all that. Will produce acorns but at least this year, what I saw on a bur oak we planted last year was about eight inches of growth out on the ends. They're a slower-growing tree compared to a maple, however, as far as tolerance, drought tolerance is a huge part of it. Basically, the only time I haven't seen them do well if they don't get enough sun. That's really all I can say about them. Great front yard tree, great in alkaline soils and just good structure to begin with. Low maintenance for sure. Oaks, we don't prune out here near as often as we would an ash tree or a maple. There's that, with a cost-effective tree.

Doug Oster: Oh, you still have ash trees? Because we don't.

Taylor Judd: Oh, yes. We still have them. Yes. Oh, my gosh. On a map, we'll say I-70. North of our territory, and then there were some larvae found in some firewood in Littleton. It's getting closer. Been in Boulder for years, but it's creeping closer to the Denver metro.

Doug Oster: We're talking emerald ash borer, which has wiped out the ash trees in the east. It's just a matter of time, but at least you're ready, at least you know it's coming, and there's been a lot of work done on that. As far as your redbuds are concerned, are you planting anything crazy and different? Variegated foliage, red foliage, anything like that?

Taylor Judd: As far as you mentioned, redbud trees, that tree in particular, as far as where we're planting those?

Doug Oster: Just the different cultivars. Are you looking at the straight species, or can other ones live there, or do you prefer the straight species?

Taylor Judd: Absolutely, yes. For this reason, in the alkaline soils, there's actually quite a few maples that show chlorosis here, so an iron deficiency. That's the yellowing of the leaves prior to fall, during the normal growing season. With that, there is another tree. Sensation maple is another one that actually derived, I think, from a box elder and maybe a red maple, but that tree is actually doing really well in alkaline soils. Essentially, you're going to get the fall color. In comparison, we could take the bur oak, very hardy tree, not spectacular fall color, and then they came up with a maple because those are nice, fall-colored trees. You'll still get the fall color, but it's more tolerant, doesn't get the sun scald like autumn blaze maple, but you still get the fall color and just an all-around good tree for front yards again with alkaline soils.

Especially with the maples, people from back East, myself included, we love fall time and then seeing those beautiful maples, but with the sun and everything else, I've seen sun scald being one of the main issues with red maples, autumn blaze maples. People forget to wrap them, and then that rapid change in temperature, you get a big scar going down it, and that can sometimes be the end of the tree, not always, but the scar can be so bad from that. Let's see, as far as another good one I recommend, pears actually do pretty well here, Chanticleer pear, if you're looking for an ornamental fruit tree. Those would be, honestly, the top of my list. In this region, I recommend five to six trees as far as deciduous, and then we go into conifers. That's another one next to the bur oak would be top of my list for this area.

Doug Oster: How do conifers do in general there?

Taylor Judd: Conifers, granted, they're not native to the Front Range, at least in our territory of East Denver, but if I were to recommend a tree that will do pretty well anywhere in the U.S., even the Midwest, an Austrian pine. That would be at the top of my list as far as a conifer. Colorado blue spruce. In my territory, if you've ever heard of the term called beetle kill, that is down here on the Front Range of Denver, out in the plains even. That's why I don't recommend a whole lot of blue spruce, because that pest just loves them. Similar to emerald ash borer, that pest is going after healthy live trees. It's not a pest that's going to come by after the tree's already struggling and it's way out. That would be on the conifer side, Austrian pine would be at the top of my list.

Doug Oster: You mentioned people moving from back East, they want the plants that they grew there, but a lot of them are not going to grow in Colorado. Do you battle that a lot?

Taylor Judd: I do, yes, and just explaining that-- especially in my area, it's a section of older Denver, there's some 80-foot tall American elms, and it looks like this could totally be a natural landscape. Just explaining that it's non-native, and then often, Cherry Creek's a pretty popular-- really one of the only main waterways through Denver, and it was like cottonwoods along Cherry Creek, that would be about the only native tree here. If you want to basically start a garden or anything like that, you need drip line, you're going to need things that you wouldn't necessarily need back East. I'm from central Illinois, and nobody watered their lawns or tree work. What's that? You clean up after a storm, and that's the extent of your tree work, really, back there because everything grows so well.

It's just explaining that, trying to find species that'll work with the clay soil too. It's definitely going to have to be tailored a little bit. I wouldn't say you could have exactly what you had back East here reasonably, and not expect some dieback to happen or losing some trees because of that. That's been tough.

Doug Oster: Tell me how you got into this. Why is this job right for you?

Taylor Judd: I got into this back in 2016. I should back up a little bit further. In college, I'm an agriculture science guy, I ran a grain elevator in central Illinois. Corn and soybeans, that's my background, and then I was in the National Guard simultaneously. I needed to find a different unit due to a MOS job change, so I called up Wyoming, and they took me in in their National Guard program, and then found a job through Davey. Granted, forestry wasn't a degree I could have gotten at my university, but I was always interested in it. Dendrology, arboriculture, I took some classes, but never really put it to work, because I just went right to the grain industry. Then when I moved out here, I learned that you could climb trees and make money doing it, and that's what paved the way at first.

I started out as just a regular groundsman, climber, then moved into foreman, then crew supervisor, and then now I'm sales arborist. Started at the very bottom dragging brush, essentially.

Doug Oster: Aren't you glad you don't have to climb trees when it's over 100 degrees?

Taylor Judd: Yes, certain days like this, I definitely don't miss it, but I usually do miss it. Just being with the crew, the camaraderie, the really difficult tasks that often get overlooked, these giant mature trees, and there's quite a bit of building and home renovations going on in our city, because it's Old Denver, and there's a lot of mature trees that are being-- trying to save, while a new house is getting built next door. Some really technical pruning and removals in such tight spaces. Days like this, I'm going to run some ice-cold Gatorade out, because it's going to be a brutal day for everyone out there, for sure.

Doug Oster: Before I let you go, tell me a little bit about being in this position, your relationship with your clients, and what you get out of working with them.

Taylor Judd: Sure. The former sales arborist, I did some ride-alongs with him his last couple weeks, and I was able to meet and greet clients. What I've been noticing lately is, actually quite a few clients, I've already pruned their trees, I've been on their properties before in a different job when I was a climber. That's been great just seeing these folks again, and then basically seeing some pruning cuts I did in the past, some structural things, and then we look back, and like, "Wow, that was five years ago. This tree's put on a lot of growth. It's time for a regular pruning cycle again." It's been nice seeing familiar people and properties, and I would like to think that clients like that I have a history in my mind of the work we've done to their trees because preservation's huge here in general.

Some of these trees are over 80 years old, and folks are willing to do anything to keep them around, buy some time on their lifespan, and extend that lifespan. That's been pretty rewarding so far.

Doug Oster: That's great stuff, Taylor. I'm going to leave it right there. I really appreciate your time. That was fun, and boy, I wish I could grow a bur oak out here in the East, but I don't think that's going to work.

Taylor Judd: I probably would anywhere. I'm telling you, that's a good tree.

Doug Oster: All right. Thanks, Taylor.

Taylor Judd: Thank you.

Doug Oster: Tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees Podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I am your host, Doug Oster, and do me a big favor, subscribe to the podcast so that you'll never miss a show. Do you have an idea for an episode, or maybe a comment? Send me an email to podcasts@davey.com, that's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S @ D-A-V-E-Y.com, and as always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

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