Talking Trees with Davey Tree

How to Protect Bark on Trees from Trimmers + Other Tree Dangers

June 24, 2021 The Davey Tree Expert Company Season 1 Episode 24
Talking Trees with Davey Tree
How to Protect Bark on Trees from Trimmers + Other Tree Dangers
Show Notes Transcript

Ben Wasielewski from Davey's Orlando office talks all about tree dangers you should be careful of, such as how trimmers and lawn mowers can be dangerous to tree bark. 

In this episode we cover:

  • String trimmers (0:36)
  • Mulch rings and proper way to mulch (2:12)
  • Lawn mowers (3:50)
  • How to let a tree heal from mower and trimmer damage (4:17)
  • Bark tracing (5:05)
  • Pruning damage and tree topping (6:25)
  • Pruning during hurricane season (9:25)
  • Tree inspection (10:46)
  • Fertilizer and products to watch (12:24)
  • Planting season in Florida and watering (14:50)
  • Hurricanes (16:43) 
  • How Ben started his job and what he enjoys (19:18)

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

To learn more about prepping your trees for storms, read our blog, Protect Your Home by Prepping Trees for Tornadoes and Hurricanes.

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

Doug: Welcome to the Davey Tree Expert Company's podcast Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each episode showcases one of Davey'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.

I'm joined this week by Ben Wasielewski. He's a district manager in the Orlando, Florida area. We're talking all about things that homeowners do that can be dangerous to a tree and I want to start off with string trimmers, Ben, because I have a Kousa Dogwood out there, and trust me, I don't want my trimmer anywhere close to that thing, but I'm always a few inches away and always worried about it. I know you've got to see string trimers being used improperly around trees every day.

Ben: Hey, Doug. Thanks for having me. Yes, down here in Florida, we see people hitting those trees with string trimmers all the time. With our landscapers, they let the grass grow right up to those trunks and they actually will sit there and hit the tree thinking it's not going to hurt it at all, but honestly, in time, you'll start seeing that tree decline and they're wondering why. Really it's the tree you're just basically hurting the tree. You're giving it a cut every time. That'd be us cutting our arms with a knife all the time.

Doug: What's going on there when they're down there? That's removing layers of bark and other layers, right? We all know that's got to be terrible for a tree.

Ben: Yes, absolutely. It is. That's really that outer section of your tree is the life support for the tree where it's bringing the nutrients up to the branches and then taking the sugars up and also bringing nutrients down into the root system. People don't realize it and they're undereducated on that stuff and that's one of the main reasons why we try to encourage people to put mulch rings around trees or a small layer of rock or something like that so we don't affect that tree.

Doug: Basically, we want some barrier to stop the guy with the trimer, either the homeowner or someone who's maintaining the area so that they get to a certain point and they're like, "Stop."

Ben: Yes, exactly it. It also makes a tree look nice too. It's not just because I want it to have a nice ornamental look to it, but it does protect the tree and that can make the tree grow healthier in the future.

Doug: Well, Ben, on the Talking Trees Podcast, we talk a lot about the proper way to mulch and if we're going to talk about putting a mulch ring around a tree, let's briefly go over the important things about how that mulch should be applied and most importantly, how it should not be applied.

Ben: Yes. Well, like you said, you've talked about it before but the best way, the best practice on applying mulch to a tree is having just a thin layer, one to two inches around the tree. You don't want to do a, as they call volcano mulching, which is building up that mulch high up into the trunk. What you're doing to the tree it's like taking yourself, you dig a deep hole into the sand or into the dirt and then you're covering yourself back up to your neck. Eventually, you'll suffocate, even though your head's out in the air. That's what you're doing to the tree, you're slowly suffocating it if you build it up too high.

Doug: What do people do with their mowers that the same thing they're banging into the tree?

Ben: Oh right, absolutely. They have the grass that comes right to their tree and they say, "Okay, let's try to not string trim at all, "and they get their mowers nice and close and they ding it just like string trimmers and they take a huge chunk out and next fall or next spring, they look at their tree and they wonder why half of their tree's dead because they just took out half their life support.

Doug: If someone's listening to this and they realize that they've been doing this the wrong way, is there anything thing they can be doing to their tree besides just stop doing that? Should they just let it heal naturally?

Ben: We have found out as arborists the best thing to do is naturally let the tree heal itself. There also is something called bark tracing but that's more on your larger, more mature trees, but you can do it on your young ones too. That's where you should have a certified arborist come out and do it for you. It's definitely a craft that the arborists know what to look for and how to do the work on the tree to help heal it properly.

Doug: What do you guys do when you see a situation like that? What is that bark tracing?

Ben: Bark tracing, what that is is the tree starts to compartmentalize and it starts to create a barrier on the wound. If you have the bark that has been torn off the tree still, that's hanging freely, kind of like if you cut yourself with a knife or something really hard and you have a flap of skin. What we want to do usually is we want to bring this piece of skin back and either put on stitches is, or put a bandage on it but with a tree you want to cut that loose bark off to where it started to heal. It will slowly help the tree grow back because if you leave some of that stuff on there that can bring bugs and other insects in there.

The rule of thumb that people used to know is painting it or putting tar or something like that, that now is starting to find out-- we find out that that's bringing back in like insects and inviting new vermins to it.

Doug: Just a reminder that the bark tracing that's for the pros to do. Don't go down to your tree after you've been trimming and try and do that, right? That's something a professional should do that knows what they're doing.

Ben: Absolutely.

Doug: What are some other things that homeowners are doing in their trees that are problematic?

Ben: Well, big thing that we have down here in the south is a lot of homeowners think, "The more I take out of a tree the better." That by far is total opposite. When you're pruning a tree, you should take out at most 25% of the structure of the tree. We do that a lot for hurricane season, storm season, or else if we need to get it away from a house or a building pruning like that, but a lot of homeowners and industries feel, "Okay, let's elevate these trees super high so we can see our building from the street." even though we come in and tell them, "Hey, you're hurting the tree," they don't care, they don't see it, they don't understand how the tree grows. Also, some people like to do something called hat-racking, where they basically top a tree because they want to bring the height of the tree down and there's also different ways to do it on there as well.

Doug: Let's talk about topping. Again, we have talked about this before, but this is a very important topic. I often tell the story of a friend who planted a tree on her patio and brought me in the plant tag and said, "What do you think about this plant in a container." And I tell them, it's a Magnolia that's going to get 30 feet tall, and then she says, "Oh, well I'll just cut it at the top and keep it." We know that is the absolute wrong thing to do, but talk a little bit about that, why it is such a bad thing to do?

Ben: Well, when you top a tree, you have a strong chance of killing the tree. The tree has a good chance of not surviving that and when some trees do, it creates extra growth. Basically, if you top a tree, now you have made a tree push out extra little branches like suckers from where your cut is and after those grow, let's say three or four years down the road that you now have four branches that came out of a one branch section. Now, all those are weak pieces so now you basically created more of an issue for yourself if you wanted to top a tree because it gets too big now you're having it grow and now you have even weaker areas.

Doug: I guess it's just an example of, and you and I see it every day, wrong tree in the wrong place.

Ben: Yes, absolutely.

Doug: Not figuring how big it's actually going to get at maturity, right?

Ben: Right. Again, that's where you should be talking to your nurseries all around. You should be talking to your tree farms. Tell them where you live, tell them what's around you and then they can hopefully lead you in the right direction from there. Going to your just typical box store, just grabbing something that's just sitting there they might not know what that can do.

Doug: You said something interesting, something I didn't think about specific to your location was pruning during hurricane season. Tell me a little bit about when you get to a landscape and looking at it during that season, what are you looking for? What do you have to do differently that we wouldn't do up here?

Ben: Down south, what we try to do for hurricane season is we put a lot of holes in the tree, in layman's terms. Your trees are like a snail, and you wanted to have wind blow through that tree. You want to take out a bunch of the interior growth. Not lion tail it. Not strip all the branches off and all you have is a poof of plant material at the end. Some tree trimmers do that and it looks really odd. You just want to poke holes in there, just so the wind will blow through freely. That's the big thing that we have our customers do and also good clearance from any kind of building, like a four to six-foot clearance. A lot of things too that we're doing this time of year is treat inspection just to let homeowners know, "Hey, you have a crack in here." Or, "You have a cavity in here. This branch might break off." Or something like that.

Doug: Well, that's another great point there. Let's talk a little bit about that. The importance of having a tree inspection, and I learned that myself. Again, on the podcast, I often talk about living in this oak forest up near Pittsburgh. I'm lucky to have a great arborist from Davey but I should have had him out earlier to look at the trees to see what the problem was. Now, because of oak wilt, I have to wait until they're in dormancy to trim them that are hanging over my house. Talk about the importance of having a certified arborist come and take a look at what's going on.

Ben: Well, it is very important that you do have a certified arborist come out because certified arborists are licensed tree professionals, that will give you the best advice in their professional way. If you have a chuck in a truck come on out there, a lot of times they're just out there just to get their dollar so they tell you instantly, "Cut the tree down," or "You have to do this." Arborists, especially with Davey, it's a free consultation to come on out and look at your tree and advise you in the right direction.

There's also certain things that Davey offers that maybe we just come in and this needs a good fertilization or something like that. Even though the trees might be 100 years old or 50 years old, they still need nutrients every once in a while. That's what the benefit of having a certified arborist is, is that it's a professional opinion to come out and do that for you.

Doug: When you have a big tree, how do you fertilize a big giant tree like that?

Ben: We do something, it's called Arbor Green. What that is, is we will go around the base of the tree starting from the trunk and go all the way out to the drip line. It's a soil injection and it's pressurized with water. It's like, a turkey baster that you stick into the ground and you walk around the perimeter of the tree injecting the Arbor Green into the ground. Down south, it's every six months because we're such sandy soils. What this does is it just helps put that extra nutrient in towards those feeder roots of your tree.

So many homeowners and businesses have come through a year later and said, "Oh my gosh. How amazing does our tree look now? It looks like a brand new tree. We were going to get it torn out." Then that's what happens, trees struggle and they just need a little kick in the pants.

Doug: Let's get back to homeowners a little bit. When they're dealing with their lawn early in the season there's some stuff they can put down on that grass that could negatively affect the tree, right?

Ben: Yes, absolutely. One product is pre-emergent. This is more towards your young trees that you just planted or young shrubs that have just been planted. The more mature trees that have been around for years, it doesn't affect as much. When you have a growth regulator or something like that, that you put down, that's what a pre-emergent is in a way for weeds to come in. Something like that, if you get too much of that product around your tree, it will actually affect the root structure for it to grow.

Also, Roundup. Roundup or glyphosate is the proper name on there. People sit there and they spray that all around the tree. Yes, if you do it just a little bit, it's not going to affect it. When you put too much down, it's going to seep in a little bit and you can see damage to your tree.

Doug: For me, there's nothing scarier than watching a homeowner with a big thing, a Roundup and no protection on and willy-nilly spraying this down there. It's something you have to be careful, especially around these young trees. What is your planting season down there compared to what ours is up north?

Ben: We have a 10-month planting season. We maybe have January, February is probably our coldest time where we don't really plant much but after that, we go crazy. Everything goes. That's when we don't do turf or something and put in sod. Our sod starts maybe in April all the way through October or November and same with plant material. It is really April through October or November is when we are mowing every week and planting plants and planting turf and really going crazy, but we just have a couple months that nothing really germinates.

Doug: I'm just guessing but I'm figuring like up here, when we plant a tree in the spring, watering is everything when you get to mid-summer. Is that the same thing down there because it's so warm?

Ben: Down here, yes. When you plant a tree, if we don't have the regular afternoon rains, then yes, we make sure that we either put something called gator bags around it, where it's a watering system or have irrigation connected to it or else have the homeowner or the individual out there with the hose every day. For example, this past week that we've been here down in Florida, we've been getting I'd say, probably one to two inches of rain a day. That's definitely sufficient enough for a tree that's just been established. That's a great thing.

If you just plant something in the spring, it might take you all spring or summer up more for that tree to finally establish. Down here, you plant it in April or May and it's established by maybe July, August. Just about five to six months and they're fully established down here.

Doug: One of the things I was thinking about, as a tree professional when you start to see warnings for tropical storms and hurricanes and that sort of thing, is it just like, "All right guys, get ready because the storms coming." Or how do you-- To me, that would be like, "Oh, we know we're going to be busy the next week if this storm hits the way they say it's going to hit."

Ben: Right. I wish it was just a week. Usually when a hurricane comes through, when Irma came through here and what was that? '17 or '18. When she came through here, it wasn't a really strong one. Okay, fine, 80-90 mile an hour winds is still strong but not compared to what we've had before but those storms will come through. That came through I believe in October and we were busy all the way through January, February cleaning up. When we know a storm's coming, like two years ago, Dorian was supposed to be directed to Florida and then it turned off, if that would have hit, we were actually getting prepared where I know that other Davey crews, I'd say, 15, 20, 30 crews from around the country they'd come down to Florida to help. That's what makes Davey such an awesome company is because we have resources everywhere. When it's a week or two out, you start planning. Let's make sure that your families are set first because you're not going to be home. Go buy a pallet of water, not just a case or two, a whole pallet. Buy extra chains, buy 55-gallon drums of oil. You have to think the huge mass of what to get because a lot of things are going to be closed.

Doug: When that happens, something like Dorian, when it doesn't hit the way it was supposed to, that's got to be quite a relief, I'm sure.

Ben: It is. It is definitely a relief. It just makes you realize after it does that, anything can happen. That's why you always need to be prepared. That's why we tell customers and we tell homeowners don't wait until you see something on the radar. Think about this in April, think about it in even February or March when it's slow. Say "Hey, you know what? I'm going to get my trees pruned now so I don't call Davey in June and find out wow, they have a six-week backlog." In that six weeks, that's when a hurricane can build up and flip on through.

Doug: That's great advice for anywhere in the country whatever you're dealing with. I always like to ask, Ben, how did you get into this and why is this the right job for you?

Ben: Well, funny story. I grew up in Western New York. I went to college in New York to build ski resorts. That was my major was natural resources and how to build ski resorts and I was getting set to move out West after I got my education. Came down to visit one of my buddies and never left.

Then I started with another company years ago and then ended up having a family and everything else down here. I've been down here just about 23 years.

Doug: Started off in New York and ended up in dreary old Florida?

Ben: Yes, bummer. It was such a bummer, but that's how it all began and I like to tell that story because people are like, "You're down south climbing trees when you went to school to build ski resorts." I'm just like, "Yep."

Doug: What is it about the job that you enjoy?

Ben: I think the biggest thing that I love about this job is it's not the same thing day in and day out. There's always something different. It keeps my mind working. Even something simple, all of a sudden this chip truck is broken down or this guy doesn't come into work. It's always a puzzle that you're always trying to figure out every day. I really like talking to customers and talking to people and seeing how they see the job complete and see it in their eyes of like, "Wow, this is really good." That feeling of satisfaction from the customer I like.

Doug: All right, Ben. I'm going to leave it right there. That's good stuff. Thanks for all that information. Sure appreciate it. Folks at home, put that string trimmer away when you're around the tree. You got to protect that thing. Thanks, Ben.

Ben: I appreciate it. Thank you.

Doug: Tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees Podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Next week, it's all about smart irrigation. We'll talk to a turf expert about the right way to get things watered in your landscape. As always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees Podcast trees are the answer.

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