How to Make a Difference in Your Landscape During the Dormant Season

Brian Sieber from Davey's Cincinnati office talks about what homeowners can be doing to care for their trees during the winter.

In this episode we cover:  

• Winter in Southwest Ohio (0:40)
• What can be done to help trees in winter (2:40)
• An arborist's annual visit schedule (3:44)
• Winter watering (4:47)
• Evergreen watering (5:44)
• Pruning in cold weather (6:19)
• Brian's favorite trees to plant in winter (7:00)
• Trees with interesting bark (8:32)
• Is it okay to fertilize in winter? (9:35)
• How Brian became a Davey arborist (10:15)
• Mulching in winter (13:09)
• Handling early blooms (14:35)
• Unique trees Brian enjoys to plant (16:12)
• Why trees gain and lose popularity (18:45)

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

To learn more about how higher winter temperatures affect a landscape, read our blog, How a Warmer Winter May Be Affecting Your Plants.

To learn more about general winter tree care, read our blog, Tree Care Checklist: How to Keep Trees Healthy This Winter.

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 

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, 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 Brian Sieber. He's a district manager for the Davey Tree Expert Company in Cincinnati, and our topic today is, can you really make a difference in your landscape during the dormant season? Brian, before I start asking you questions about that, what has your start to winter been like?

Brian Sieber: Doug, I'm down here in the southwest corner of Ohio in Cincinnati, and I could tell you by looking out the window right now, stepping outside onto the nice green turf, that it is a balmy 50, 55 degrees, probably one of the mildest Decembers I've seen for the last couple of years.

Doug Oster: What do you think that'll mean for us, for our trees, or does it mean anything?

Brian Sieber: All plants have to go through some sort of winterization process in order to prepare themselves for the cold temperature onset and those freezing, really harsh conditions. As long as we don't have a drastic jump into those really cold temperatures where it drops down into the teens and below, their winterization process should be all right, but it is a prolonged, I almost look at it at a prolonged fall, late fall period right now.

Doug Oster: Now, last season, I'm north of you, we had a similar start to winter like this, but then we went suddenly down to below zero and it took its toll on a lot of plants that were tough as nails that we've never seen looking so bad. Does this happen to you too last year or not?

Brian Sieber: What we had last year for us in our region and something to look at in how winter plays a part in it is we had a couple of really mild weeks in the late portion of the winter. Roughly around in February last year, we had some really mild weeks and it pulled some of the plants out of dormancy a touch early and then we went back into cold weather again towards the end of February. That caused a lot of tip dieback that you would see bronzing on plants that you would normally see that they don't particularly like. It'll create some dead branch ends on some landscape plants and trees. That's all pretty common whenever you have fluctuations in temperature that are drastic.

Doug Oster: Let's get to our topic. What can we be doing during this winter season to help or assure our trees are okay?

Brian Sieber: Like anything else, just getting out and looking at them is a good start. If you're not familiar with what you should be looking for at this time of year, I always felt like the wintertime as an arborist going out was a great time to look at branch structure, bark on trees and plants, and the root zone or the root area of trees and plants because I feel like it was always very well exposed at this portion in the year. The leaves aren't there to hinder it.

The low perennials aren't there to block the sight of it. You can really see if there's any structural defects in the tree. What you might be looking for is cracks in the trunk or abrasions in the trunk. You might be looking at fungus growth on the side of the tree, your plant, or shrub. You might be looking for holes or cavities that otherwise might be hidden from view during the spring and during the summer.

Doug Oster: Typically, are you going to properties this time of the year to look at this or has this been done earlier in the season?

Brian Sieber: Absolutely, we are looking at properties this time of year. For a lot of our clients, we try to go out and look at properties a couple of times during the year. I always try to get out at least three times to look at a property. Once in the springtime to make sure that branch elongation and growth were doing really good. Once in the summertime to see how the stress of the heat were affecting the plants and drought was affecting the plants. Then once in the winter this time of year to see how that bark and how the tree structure and branch structure, make sure there was no cracks or anything else going on that would otherwise be hindered at other points in time.

Doug Oster: Now, where I'm at, I don't have to worry about watering at this point of the season just because we've had this strange start to winter where I equate it to like a Seattle-type weather where it's mild and rainy all the time. If I was in an area that didn't have water, would I be watering this time of the year or not so much?

Brian Sieber: Oh, absolutely. A lot of people feel like because the weather's cold outside that drought concerns aren't real concerns and they are real concerns. We get to a point during the year where you might go a month without any rainfall or waterfall at all. For a lot of plants, when we look at them in the springtime, we'll notice this bronzing effect and they call it a winter bronze where the foliage turns copperish or off-color from green. That's really just an absence of water inside the plant as they drought out over the course of the wintertime. Just in the wintertime, there are plenty of plants that still lose moisture over the course of the wintertime. Watering is super important when it's feasible. It's not always feasible when it's 10 degrees outside.

Doug Oster: Let's say the ground hasn't frozen and I know from doing this podcast, one thing that uses a lot of water are evergreens, right? They're transpiring water out of the--

Brian Sieber: All winter long. In fact, those are some of the ones that are most prone to not retaining moisture during the wintertime and drying out. Evergreens like Arborvitae, evergreens like Leyland cypress, evergreens like spruces, all have issues retaining moisture during the wintertime.

Doug Oster: When you're looking up at, or when we're looking up at the structure of the tree, is this a good time to do some of the pruning that needs to be done? If you see something up there that might be a danger or might be just structurally wrong for the tree?

Brian Sieber: I absolutely feel like winter is a good time to do pruning, especially deadwooding on trees. There are plenty of trees that actually really benefit from a winter type of pruning, or we call it a dormant pruning. Trees that are particularly prone to insect damage or diseases, the wintertime tends to be a lot safer time to address those trees.

Doug Oster: I'm going to throw you a little bit of a curve ball here. What are some of your trees during this season that have beautiful winter interests that you will plant for people?

Brian Sieber: A lot of people I find during the wintertime get really interested in planting trees that are more evergreen-based trees. Mostly because even during the wintertime when you're planting trees, that people want to see some color during the long periods of the winter. A lot of clients where they might plant deciduous trees that lose their foliage prior to the fall. In the wintertime, we see a lot of people that want to lean more towards planting spruces or southern magnolias that might retain some of their foliage throughout the wintertime.

Arborvitae might get planted, Blue Atlas Cedars, which are a very fun and unique plant. They also get planted this time of year. All of those maintain a lot of their foliage throughout the wintertime. They provide a little bit of color, a little bit of that green color that people look for during the winter season.

Doug Oster: It's warm enough for you down there to grow a southern magnolia?

Brian Sieber: Yes, and in our area we get really good success growing southern magnolias.

Doug Oster: We're right on the edge, and there are some new varieties that are supposed to be hardier. We do have some anomaly trees that nobody knows why they're here, but they are making it. How about as far as bark is concerned? In my landscape, one of my favorites is the shagbark hickory for the winter. Are there any other ones that you can think of that have a cool-looking bark to give us some interest in the winter?

Brian Sieber: There's at least three that I can think of that have some great-looking bark that's good for the winter. You said shagbark hickory, those are great foresty trees, good for shade. They grow up super tall and nice and pretty. Also, I find a lot of people have been planting a lot of paperbark maple trees, which are more of an ornamental tree in our area. They don't grow nearly as tall and they have just gorgeous flaky bark that comes on them.

Then, always popular in most of the areas that I go and see are the river birch trees. River birches tend to be a fixture in a lot of our residential areas. They provide a filtered sunlight during the summertime and the bark is very papery and very interesting this time of year.

Doug Oster: Could we still fertilize at this point or are we waiting till spring?

Brian Sieber: It depends on what type of fertilizer and what type of soil temperature you're at. I find that this time of year if you get too cold, even the root development slows down to the point where it's not able to pull what they would call a quick-release nitrogen out of the soil. There are plenty of times up into this point where the soil temperature is in the 50s and 60s, where you get a lot of good root development underneath the ground, and fertilization can be very beneficial to plants at that point in time. They do a lot of root growth in the fall season.

Doug Oster: How did you get into this? Why is this job right for you?

Brian Sieber: Oh gosh, I started in with Davey over 20 years ago and it was to get me out of working inside and get me out of working in out of factories and warehouses. Once you're outside and once you're doing that work outside with plants and nature, it's invigorating and it's rewarding on a day-in and day-out basis. If it wasn't for those two main contributing factors, I don't think I ever would have stayed in this industry as long as I have. The work area is always different a lot of the time, the problems are always unique and boy, does it beat being stuck indoors.

Doug Oster: How about working with long-time clients? Talk a little bit about your relationships.

Brian Sieber: Oh my gosh. There's nothing better than working with long-time clients, especially those clients that are passionate about their trees and about their landscapes, and about their environment. You really get to see the benefits of your long-term care when it comes to plants. Those properties that we've worked with where we planted the tree 20 years ago is a four-foot sapling or a three-foot tree. Going back to those properties now, we'll see those trees is 20, 30 feet tall, diameter is really big. We've honed in on landscaping. When we look at plant problems, insects, and disease, and you take a tree that's really struggling and over the course of several years, nurture it back to the point where it's thriving and really rewarding that landscape, it's a really good feeling.

Doug Oster: That's the part of your job that always fascinates me. I know that sometimes you have to give bad news, but the other side of the coin, I like that where-- because we have a connection with these trees, whether we planted it or whether we're taking care of it or just stewards for it. As a homeowner, when you look at a tree and you're just so worried, and then you can come in and like, no, it's not going to be overnight, but we can bring this thing back. That's pretty cool, I think.

Brian Sieber: It's one of the most positive feelings that you can have out there when you can help a client take a tree that-- I've had clients where they have heritage trees. Trees that I consider ones that their kids grew up with, climbed over the course of their life. They love these trees and they come down with problems and sicknesses and illnesses and issues. All of us do, not just plants, but everybody does, and to help those clients nurture those trees back to a point where it's a staple again in their landscape, it's a really good feeling.

Doug Oster: With this slow start to winter for many of us in the East, mulching, can we still be mulching as long as we're doing it the right way?

Brian Sieber: Yes. As long as you're doing it the right way, it shouldn't be a problem. I think most people would find it hard this time of year to navigate the good weather days and the bad weather days and the cold weather days to get out there and do it, but definitely, not a bad thing to do. Mulch helps winterize a lot of plants, too, going into the fall if you have some low-surfaced root plants. I always found that mulching things like knockout roses help them over winter a lot better, and that's stuff that I always found was beneficial for those. By all means, if you have time to do it and you can sneak away in to do it, I would absolutely do it.

Doug Oster: About every other podcast, we always have to warn about volcano mulch.

Brian Sieber: Oh, yes.

Doug Oster: We'll keep the mulch away from the base of the tree or shrub or whatever it might be and get it out to the drip line. I've done enough podcasts to know that.

Brian Sieber: You are 100% correct on that one, Doug. Over-mulching can be a real problem, especially if you're just in the habit of throwing it down wherever you think it belongs.

Doug Oster: When we have a winter like this, we were talking before we started recording, I've got some forsythia that have a few blooms on them. The whole thing is not going. I've got some little snowdrop bulbs popping up. I guess there's nothing I can do about it, but I know as many homeowners, that's a concern. I don't want to miss my forsythia blooming in the spring, but it's been fooled by this weather.

Brian Sieber: Yes. Unfortunately, it's the soil temperature that really dictates when a lot of plants come out of hibernation and when they decide that they're no longer going to remain dormant. It can definitely be a concern. The biggest things that I would tell you to do if you're worried about plants like your forsythia is make sure it has the right nutrient content going forward. In some cases, you might have to be prepared to prune it a little bit in the springtime, knock it back a little bit so that if there is any damage that it's incurred, proper maintenance after the fact is really key in its recovery.

Doug Oster: For me, I really don't care because, for me, a forsythia is a weed, [laughs] but I know people love them. I have them through the landscape. They've been here forever.

Brian Sieber: I had a neighbor a couple of years back that had them as a hedgerow, sheared them back every year, treated them like a hedgerow. For two weeks in the springtime, when the yellow flowers were in, they looked amazing. Then after that, they were just a hedgerow.

Doug Oster: A one-trick pony [laughs].

Brian Sieber: You are absolutely correct.

Doug Oster: Before we finish up, I wanted to pick your brain a little bit about some trees that you enjoy planting when you find the right spot for them that might be a little bit off the beaten path.

Brian Sieber: The one that I've grown to like over the course of the last couple of years that I think are pretty fun, it's an evergreen this time of year. I know we talked a little bit about evergreens earlier and how people were planting them. Seasonally, I'm going to tell you that one that I like pretty often right now is an Alaskan fall cypress tree. It's an uprighty, staggering, narrow evergreen.

It grows in areas that normally when I see them planted, it's planted in a confined, not particularly an overly confined space, but maybe on the corner of a house where it's not going to be overly intrusive. They're slow growing. They're very upright trees and they don't get overly wide. The foliage is very droopy. It makes an interesting plant in the landscape. It adds a lot of texture.

Doug Oster: It makes quite a statement. That is a cool tree. I think that's the first time when I ask that question that tree has come up. I've seen those trees before. I've always loved those trees before, but this is what's wonderful about talking to an arborist. It's like, "Oh, yes, man, that would be a cool tree," because I'm always trying to add a little bit more diversity into my landscape, into my forest as the oak trees fall away and I end up supporting Davey with all the work that needs to be done. [laughs] You got one more tree?

Brian Sieber: If I was keeping with another one that I really have liked recently and that was popular in the landscape a few years ago, but we haven't really planted a whole bunch of them here lately and I might plant them a little more often. I might go back to more of the European hornbeam. I like those in the landscape and I feel like we've pulled away from those and those fit a certain-- they're not tall. As a former tree worker where I do a lot of work outside, and I still do a lot of tree work outside, the maintenance on those is relatively low. They're not overly large trees. They have a unique leaflet to them and they have a pretty bark, similar to what a beech tree would have, a nice smooth bark to them and I like those.

Doug Oster: Why do you think that some trees, they come in and out of fashion, not only with homeowners but also with professionals, like fashion to me?

Brian Sieber: I think is a lot of-- when you get talking with a lot of consulting arborists or landscape designers, there's an underlying goal a lot of the time to create diversity in the landscape and to create something that's going to be standoutish. I think a lot of people when they look at planting, try to find something that's just a little bit different from the neighbors and they do that very well originally and then that builds up a lot of popularity within those plant items.

Then inevitably what happens is that after a while people say, well, I've seen about 30 million Canadian cherry trees floating around. I don't want to plant another Canadian cherry tree and they move away from that for a good time period and then inevitably after that diversification dies out and those plants don't have as much popularity anymore, you can go back and put some of those in the landscape that haven't seen that type of popularity in 15 or 20 years.

Doug Oster: I think that's one of the fun things about planting in general. Brian, thanks so much for spending some time with us. That was great stuff. I had a lot of fun talking to you and I'm sure we'll talk again.

Brian Sieber: Thank you, Doug. I really appreciate your time.

Doug Oster: Tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees Podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster and do me a big favor, subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss an episode. If you've got an idea for a show, maybe a comment, send us an email at podcasts at davey.com, that's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S at 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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