Gail Nozal from Davey Resource Group talks about how to identify trees on your property, as well as how to identify trees that are stressed and on the decline.
In this episode we cover:
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 identify trees and what apps to use, read our blog, How to Tell What Type of Tree I Have.
To learn more about identifying trees on your property, read our Identification blogs.
To learn more about identifying a tree in stress, read our blog, Signs and Symptoms of Tree Stress (Plus Treatment).
Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
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!
Gail Nozal from Davey Resource Group talks about how to identify trees on your property, as well as how to identify trees that are stressed and on the decline.
In this episode we cover:
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 identify trees and what apps to use, read our blog, How to Tell What Type of Tree I Have.
To learn more about identifying trees on your property, read our Identification blogs.
To learn more about identifying a tree in stress, read our blog, Signs and Symptoms of Tree Stress (Plus Treatment).
Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
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!
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Doug Oster: Welcome to the Davy Tree Expert Company's Podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each episode showcases one of Davy's certified arborists sharing advice with everyone about caring for your trees and landscapes. We'll talk about everything from introduced pests, seasonal tree care, deer damage, how to make your trees thrive, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees Podcast, we know trees are the answer.
Doug Oster: This week, we're joined by Gail Nozal from the Davy Resource Group. Good morning. How are you?
Gail Nozal: Doing great. Thanks for having me, Doug.
Doug: We're going to talk all about how to identify trees. Now, you tell me if I'm right or wrong here, as someone who has spent their life like you researching trees around trees, you can just look at a tree and always know what the species is?
Gail: Well, for the most part, yes. I'm pretty comfortable with trees in the upper Midwest, especially, and, of course, always having good tools to identify trees in other parts of the country or the world are also important too. Having some leaf resources like dichotomist keys to figure out a species that you don't know is also good to have in your back pocket as well.
Doug: Tell me about that. What is that? The keys.
Gail: A dichotomous key is essentially a tool that helps you make decisions on, it's like an if-then statement when it comes to math. If a tree has leaves on it, it points you towards a certain direction. If it has needles, it'll point you in another direction. It helps you define choice by choice and ultimately you should come up with a species selection on what a tree is. It's a scientific key.
Doug: I've used it before and it usually puts me in the right direction. How about with our phones nowadays? Is there something on our phone that we can use?
Gail: I absolutely. Yes. There's many different apps that you can download that you simply open up the camera on your phone and take a picture and will help to ID that as well. Certainly, it's probably a lot easier than using a dichotomous key, but that's what I learned on years ago.
Doug: It's funny, myself included, I use the keys too. I do have the apps, but it just seems that I always go to-- following that to figure out exactly. I guess it's just old habit.
Gail: Yes. I'm trying to use the app more and more, especially out in the field with early-career professionals because they're pretty sad with the apps as well. Trying to utilize those tools as much as possible.
Doug: Tell me a little bit about what the Davy Resource Group is.
Gail: The Davy Resource Group is a subsidiary of the Davy Tree Expert Company. We provide a lot of consulting services in the way of environmental consulting, asset management, as well as utility vegetation management, and planning under utility lines. A whole gamut of services for utilities, municipalities, commercial entities that really focus around consulting and providing quality professional services to those types of clients.
Doug: Do you have any trees that you can think of that are less used in the landscape than they should be? Is that something that you think about at all in your job?
Gail: I do definitely think about-- tree diversity is on minds of many urban foresters, especially as we've seen over the years that many trees that have been overplanted like elm trees succumb to Dutch elm disease. Emerald ash borer, of course, is something that's currently on our minds currently and so many trees were planted in the '70s and '80s and now, of course, have either died or are dying from emerald ash borer.
Many urban forest and arborists are always thinking about that tree diversity is key to having that wide variety of species so they could overcome any insect or disease possibilities. I'm always looking for that going down to a street, city street, or in Woodland and trying to say what-- Increasing the diversity is always important when you're thinking about tree planting.
Doug: For me, I'm always telling people for the east here, "Try a stewartia. Try a stewartia." Because, for me, it has the four seasons of interest. It's got the bark, it's got a nice shape, it's got good fall color, it's got flowers. Is there anything like that in your head when you think, "Boy, I wish people would land this tree a little bit more because it's tough and it's pretty, and it would give us more diversity in our forest"?
Gail: In an urban setting, of course, sometimes we could be limited by our surroundings. A lot of times, those are things to think about as far as what does that seasonal interest looks like? In, for example, river birch trees are planted along street trees as well, but similar to the east, they provide that winter interest with that uniquely bark that has kind of salmon-colored bark, flaking, and is pretty tough. There's some other elm species that while it doesn't have real flashy fall color, there's some ones that are resistant to Dutch elm disease.
That's something we think about here a lot as well. There's also opening up a lot of options that we haven't tested here in the Midwest, as much as, for example, redbud. It's been around for a long time, but now in Minnesota, in particular, where I'm located, there's hardy strains that are being planted all the time that now provides some nice spring flower interest that we probably couldn't have grown years ago. Definitely seeing a lot more variety and options than we used to.
Doug: If it could make it in Minnesota, it could make it just about anywhere.
Gail: It's a lot of cold hardiness research happening in here in North Dakota, especially.
Doug: If we're out in our own landscape, and I've learned while doing this podcast that it's important to look up, I have a Davy arborist coming tomorrow because I did look up. When looking at trees, what are some signs that they're on the decline?
Gail: You'll find that arborists oftentimes they're looking up more than they're looking down, which is always a challenge sometimes with our counterparts that do turf management. When we are looking up at the crown, I think that most arborists just by nature tend to always be analyzing, what type of tree is that? Boy, is it in good health? Is it in poor health?
At this time of the year, generally, most trees are looking to be in good health. A lot of the times we start to see some signs of stress is maybe a few months into the season, sometimes Midsummer. A lot of times I look to see, is the crown, the area of where all the leaves are, is it starting to thin? Are there kind of some visual holes in the canopy? Are perhaps the leaves may be turning, in an area where there's fall color, are they turning color earlier than they really should be?
Also, you can look at the leaves to see, are they perhaps smaller in size than they should be? Especially when it comes to deciduous, those are really the key indicators. The canopy thinning, early fall colors, as well as smaller leaves. When it comes to conifers perhaps pine spruce, which are pretty common in most parts of the country, you can also look at something called shoot length. That's kind of where the end bud on a conifer, for example, you can look back at and you can measure the distance between each growth spurt essentially. It's not the technical term, but between where the end bud was and see how much growth there was. A lot of times I'll look at that to see how much growth happened each
Doug: Certainly, if we have something from that family and you start to see it, I hear this all the time, turning brown from the bottom and working its way up, that's telling us something. Is that just getting old or?
Gail: Well, it could be a number of things. The first thing I think about is irrigation especially on a conifer, is that perhaps maybe having a homeowner or brother property manager, turning the irrigation heads on and seeing where they're hitting. Oftentimes, it's too much moisture that's hitting those lower branches causing just too much moisture. Also, sometimes shading. There's spacing, oftentimes, is too close for many of the conifers when you plant them when they're smaller and younger. Boy, it looks like you get a lot in, but as they grow in size, oftentimes, they can shade each other out as well.
Definitely, the irrigation and some shading can happen as well. Then, of course, our friend, the lawnmower can certainly come in contact with some of those branches as well and cause the damage, especially close to the ground.
Doug: I guess too, we've got to go string trimmer. Well, if we talk about mower, we've got to-- Watch that string trimmer, people.
Gail: It's absolutely, yes. That nice mulching helps as a visual clue to keep those string trimmers back. As an arborist, a lot of times those the turf, and maintaining the turf is sometimes becomes a head-on challenge a lot of times.
Doug: Of course, in any issue with a tree it's important to actually see it. I could say-- just like we just did, I said, "Hey, I think it's dying from the bottom." You explain so many different possibilities, but it's important for somebody who knows what they're doing to look at the tree. That's why I'm having somebody who knows what they're doing come over and look at my trees tomorrow.
Gail: Seeing something in person is pretty critical. I've had so many conversations where somebody said, "This is happening." I said, "It could be this, however, could be something else." Just being able to physically be on-site and examine is really important. Also, determine there might be some other diagnostics that perhaps visually it's not presenting as some stress, but perhaps taking some foliage samples and sending those into a diagnostic lab and even doing some soil testing, are some great clues to indicate what's happening that you may not be visually observing. Of course, the trees can't really talk to us, as well they can provide more visual clues to us.
Doug: When people find out what you do, do you get a lot of questions?
Gail: People are very surprised that even though trees and tree care has been around for a long time, people still get pretty surprised about, "Oh, this is a career?" Definitely, I spent a lot of time talking to younger folks, trying to encourage them to go into arboriculture and urban forestry because it's out there around them all the time, but sometimes they don't even realize that there's a specific career path in that field. It's definitely a passion of mine to encourage people to get out, and if they're especially interested in a career in the outdoors, to try it out, do an internship, see what it's all about.
Doug: I always love to ask, how did you find your way to this job?
Gail: I, like a lot of students in college enjoyed being outdoors and probably had a couple different majors before I settled on urban forestry and transferred colleges in there as well. I had an uncle that worked for the fish and wildlife service as a forester. I didn't want to be out in, he lived in Alaska, I didn't want to be out in the forest per se, but I wanted more of an urban setting. That's how I stumbled upon, "How do you bring those together?" and the University of Minnesota had an urban forestry program, which really brought my interest together. That's where I've been ever since.
Doug: Tell me a little bit about what you get out of doing this job.
Gail: I'm very passionate about the outdoors. I get a lot of satisfaction teaching others and talking to them about their trees and how they can care for them. Again, just sharing that knowledge of the environment and how they can improve their surroundings by planting trees. There's so many different benefits of trees that they provide in a commercial and residential setting, from environmental benefits to economic, to aesthetic benefits that I think it's important to-- even though many people think that they already know all those, it's important to keep reminding them too about what those benefits are.
Doug: As a tree expert, what are the things that drive you nuts when you drive around and see either new construction or newly planted trees, or even just a general tree landscape, what are the things that really bother you when you're driving around saying, "I can't believe they put that tree there, or you're doing this to that tree"?
Gail: The things that jump out to me, especially continue to be kind of that the right tree in the right place, really making sure that you've got proper tree selection for the setting because simply it's not a one size fits all type of situation. Making sure that you're doing soil tests in advance and matching the right tree to the site. A lot of times I'll see it's very easy to just go and plant a bunch of maple trees and then a bunch of Elm trees or pine trees, but it's really important as we talked about earlier with diversity, to make sure that you're selecting the right tree for the right site.
Then, of course, following up with proper planting procedures. The International Society of Arboriculture has published some BMPs, Best Management Practices when it comes to many different facets of agriculture, and one of those includes planting. Following those planting best management practices is really important to survival. It's not only selection, but it's also following it through to the installation, of course, and aftercare of the tree as well. Those simple steps can really help the tree survive long term.
Doug: All right, Gail. Great stuff. Thanks very much for all the information. I will, of course, be looking up tomorrow when my Davy Tree guy comes. Thanks again.
Gail: Thanks for having me, Doug.
Doug: Tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees Podcast from the Davy Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Next week, we'll talk all about how to protect bark on those trees from trimmers and other tree dangers too. As always, we like to remind you on the Talking Trees Podcast, trees are the answer.
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