Spring Tree Care Tips from an Arborist

Matt Betz from Davey's Charlotte office talks about what you should be doing this spring on your landscape to keep your trees and property thrive this season! 

In this episode we cover:  

• Spring so far this year in Charlotte (0:33)
• Damage becomes apparent in spring (1:23)
• Right tools and sharp tools (3:22)
• Should you avoid pruning in the spring? (5:04)
• Benefits of a certified arborist and cabling and bracing (6:18)
• Spring planting (12:03)
• Mulching (15:47)
• Fertilizer (17:02)
• Things to look for at the start of spring (19:59)

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

To learn more about spring tree care, read our blogs, Most Common Questions about Tree Care in Spring and Tree Care Checklist: How to Keep Trees Healthy This Spring. 

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

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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 welcoming back Matt Betz. He's an assistant district manager for the Davey Tree Expert Company in Charlotte, North Carolina, and today we're talking all about spring. Matt, what has the spring been like for you this year?

Matt Betz: It's been pretty good down here in the Southeast. Little wetter than usual, I'd say, but that's helped everything wake up. We've been fortunate we haven't had too many really cold mornings, so we haven't-- usually, everything will bloom, all the cherries and pear trees, and we haven't had that this year, so all of these buds have hung on, and it's been a pretty extended period with blooming trees.

Doug: As usual, here in Pittsburgh, I lost my magnolia blossoms. They were just ready to go, and things dropped to like 23°F, and that was it, so I'm not going to be able to see my magnolia bloom this year, but that's the way it goes in the world of trees.

Matt: That's exactly right.

Doug: When you're thinking about everything waking up in spring, tree-wise, what's the first thing that comes to mind?

Matt: Everything's going to become very apparent when it comes to damage, broken limbs, declining trees, declining shrubs, because you've had these trees all winter that have been dormant, so they essentially look dead, and depending on the part of the country, you've either had rain or you've had snow and ice, so there may be broken limbs, broken tops, cracked limbs, splitting unions, so now is the time to get out there. It'll be very apparent what sections of the tree are declining or struggling, so it's just going to make it all obvious.

Doug: When we're looking up at these trees, we do see broken branches, and we need pruning, but it's too high for us. We talk about this a lot. Don't get up on a ladder if you don't know what you're doing. Get a certified arborist to come do that pruning.

Matt: Yes, sir, yes. It's not worth the-- it's a very dangerous job to begin with, even for the professionals that know what they're doing, so if a homeowner goes out and tries to attempt-- we've all seen the YouTube videos, so you know it can go sideways in a hurry, so call the professionals. Call Davey Tree out there. We've got qualified individuals that can guide you.

There's plenty of times where I will, especially for smaller ornamental trees, where I say like, "Hey, I want you to know how to do it the right way. It's not a big enough job to warrant us coming out at this particular time, so let's prescribe some healthcare and get you on the books with that," and then I'll show you how to prune it the right way. That way, you can do it throughout the season as you feel led.

Doug: Let me stick with pruning for a little bit, and again, our feet are on the ground, but talk about the importance of the right tools and sharp tools to do these jobs.

Matt: Yes, you want to have the right tools in place to be able to make proper cuts, so you're not marring up these limbs, which are so critical. You can make one or two wrong cuts that can have a prolonged negative effect on a tree. We look at Japanese maples a lot down here which are great, high-value trees, and homeowners or landscapers will go in and butcher them and then call us out to fix them.

At that point, it's like there's not much that can be done, so a good quality set of hand pruners goes a long way. Don't go out there with your garden scissors. Don't go out there with a set of loppers and just-- and it's the right tool for the job. You also see inexperienced folks using chainsaws to make two to three-inch diameter cuts, and it's like you're causing way more damage. Where spend $50 on a quality hand saw, and you can take care of most things on your property between that and a set of good quality hand pruners.

Doug: That pruning saw for me is a godsend, and again, I am never leaving the ground. I've got Davey Arborist managing my property, but when you've got little things that are low, having that sharp pruning saw that does the job the right way, instead of reaching for-- You see people, like a carpenter saw or something, that's not the right tool to use. Get a good pruning saw. Again, sticking with pruning, are there certain trees in the spring that we try to avoid pruning, if possible?

Matt: It's different throughout the country. I know down here in the South, we don't have too many species that we have to avoid. I know in the Northeast, the Midwest, and central parts of the country, oak wilt is certainly a concern just because it can open up that tree to different issues, so pruning at the proper time is important.

You've also got different flowering trees. A lot of people refer to, and we'll get it down here where they say, "Hey, we need to prune right now because the sap's getting ready to run," and that's true with maples. I don't know if it can be true with other species of trees, but I know especially if you're doing just routine maintenance, it's not as critical with those trees to do it at a particular time.

Maple trees are different when you're trying to harvest sap, obviously, from those, but I'm sure up where you're at, you'd be more versed on that than I even am. For the most part, oaks, I know some species of elms can have issues, but that's the biggest concern.

Doug: Let's talk a little bit about having a certified arborist come to the property and identifying problems. We've talked a little bit on this on previous shows, but cabling or bracing, removing weak limbs, and lightning protection is something I never thought of for a big, mature tree.

Matt: Certainly, yes, especially for an investment tree, and I've got a unique story that'll tie into this. Cabling and bracing can be costly. It can be difficult for a general consumer to want to invest that money in a tree, especially if it's done right. You can do anything the cheap way and make it look the part, but it may not function correctly. Doing it the right way with the-- we've got standards for all of these different procedures, so following those standards.

My story to go with this, we've got a good client, residential property, that built his home essentially around this approximately 80-inch diameter willow oak tree. Massive, massive tree. We've been taking care of it for probably five or six years. It split into two large leads at about 15 to 18 feet up the tree. I had proposed cabling and lightning protection, but really stressing the cabling probably three or four times over the past couple of years, but it was a lot of money.

He didn't see the point investing that money at this time. I get a call late last summer, the guy is in a panic, storm came through. The tree is actively failing. It is split in two. I rushed down there that day. We put together a game plan. He wants to save the tree. I outline everything from top to bottom with the risks, with the liability, just all of that. Long story short, over the past six months, we had to do kind of some emergency pruning to get some weight off the limbs.

We took some large limbs off that we wouldn't typically do, but we didn't want anything failing any more than it had. We've done that. We've installed, I think, four cables using [unintelligible 00:08:48], which is where you drill all the way through these 20-inch to 24-inch diameter limbs. We are currently in the process of putting nine 7/8" rods through this tree.

That means we're drilling nine one-inch diameter holes all the way through an eight-feet tree, which has been-- I don't know that anyone else has done it ever on a tree this large. It's taken a lot of time on my part to guarantee that it would work. So far, we've done five, we have four more to go. We were waiting on some hardware. That's going to be buttoned up within the next couple of weeks and the tree looks good.

It's no longer at risk of failing with the work that we've done. It could still die, which would be a shame with the amount of money that's put into it, but it's been a feat and it's something I'm really proud of just because of the ingenuity that had to go into it and the problem solving. Also, you've got a client that's willing to spend $20,000 to $30,000 on a tree to try to save it instead of spending that money to take it down and start over.

Doug: Man, that is one of the most amazing things, I think, about doing what you guys do. That is a legacy tree, you build your house around it. Did the client feel like or say, "I wish I would have listened to you a year ago."

Matt: Oh, yes, definitely, many times over. The same with the lightning protection because it's like you would have spent a third of what you're going to have in this tree now, and it's still a risk. There are no guarantees that this tree is going to survive. We're just following everything to the letter of the standard. There really isn't a clear cut guideline. The drill that we're using for this tree-- fortunately, Davey's been around for 150 years, and we've got a drill that's probably 50 years old that we're using.

It is an inch and a quarter-inch chuck drill that we can-- I've got literally an eight-feet tall-- I got pictures of me with this drill bit beside me that's eight-feet tall that we are driving through this tree an inch at a time, just barely making our way, because it's not like drilling through a two by four. You can't just punch it through. You've got to drill through an inch or two, and then back it all the way out, and clean out that hole, and then back through.

It's been awesome. I'll have to email you some pictures so you can see what this has entailed. It's pretty wild.

Doug: Oh, I would love to see that. It's so interesting, and let's keep up with this tree. I would like to hear about this as we get into the fall, and then see what's going on. Let's move to getting started as far as planting is concerned. I'm sure you guys have already started planting down there in North Carolina, right?

Matt: Yes, sir. Honestly, we're done for the most part.

Doug: Really?

Matt: With as hot and as dry as the summers get here, we typically plant from, let's say, Thanksgiving until daylight savings time, right around that window. We put in a few trees within the last two weeks, but that's been the end of our window. It's already been 80 degrees here, and it's going to move into the summer quickly. If you don't have a client or a property owner that can commit to watering as frequently as they need to, those trees just aren't going to make it through the summer.

We do a lot of dormant season, kind of off-season planting. That works out here, but obviously, up where you all are, that window is much wider, and you can plant-- I know landscapers up there are planting actively through May and sometimes even June. Water is the key, though. That makes all the difference in the world.

Doug: Even for us up here, we're just getting started planting for the spring season, anyway. Keeping water on them when rain is scarce through the summer and all the way into the fall is critical, and people need to know that. What are some of the mistakes people do make if they're planting their own tree?

Matt: A lot of times you'll plant it, I would say, too deep. Most people are like, they dig the hole, it's too deep, and then they'll fill over it. If I have clients that I'm advising that want to plant on their own, I would much rather see a tree planted too high than too deep, just because you can't save a tree if it's two, three, four inches below grade, and then you put soil right up against the trunk of the tree. That initial top root flare is covered and suffocated.

I describe it to a lot of folks, and it ties back into the water as well. All these trees, whether they're balled-and-burlapped or a container tree, the roots are right there. It only takes a couple of days for those roots to dry out, especially for some more ornamental trees or shrubs. If you go out of town and it hasn't rained and you don't have a watering system set up, that can be all it takes to-- it won't kill the tree outright, but it just starts it down that path to where you're going to have some of those fine roots wither and die, essentially, and not be able to recover.

The same goes for planting too deep. If you cover all those roots up and have compaction, then you're not going to have enough oxygen to get to those roots for it to continue to thrive. It may live for a few years, but it can also promote girdling roots in the soil, which are going to start wrapping around the base of that tree and essentially choke it from the inside out. That's critical.

And Mulch. A lot of folks know to mulch, but they don't understand the reasoning behind it, which good hardwood mulch can act as a natural fertilizer as it breaks down, but it also holds water. If you do have those areas where you miss some watering days, it can offset that a bit. The side effect of that is too much mulch because then you're piling mulch up, and we refer to it as volcano mulching down here where they just keep putting it on and on and on. That can do the same thing. It can choke a tree out over time.

Doug: Yes, just touch on that a little bit more. Again, we've gone over this over and over again on the podcast, but it's so important because we see it everywhere and it drives us nuts. What should that mulch look like if we're applying it to any tree, as opposed to volcano mulch?

Matt: Right, it's an inch or two covering over the-- if it's in a bed, it's going to be the whole bed. If you're planting just a new tree and a new mulch ring, a couple inches of mulch is all you need. Then you want to go through and make sure you pull it away from the trunk of the tree. It's like having a Band-Aid on. You don't want to leave a Band-Aid on in perpetuity because you're not going to get any airflow to that to allow it to breathe.

You're going to trap all that moisture right there in an infant tree and that can promote decay. It may not be an issue right now, but we look at trees that are in the ground five, seven, eight years, and they're like, "What happened with this tree?" It's like, well, you've been piling this mulch up and now the whole base of it is rotten from when you initially planted it. It can definitely have a negative effect.

Doug: Then let's talk a little bit about fertilization. Again, we've touched on this before, but slow release is the way to go, right?

Matt: Yes, sir. Slow release. We utilize Davey's patented Arbor Green PRO® Fertilizer, which is non-water soluble. It's raining outside right now and we've got a technician out fertilizing because that powder that we inject into the ground doesn't break down, it's going to stay right there. It's slow release. It's got a low salt index, so it doesn't burn. I use it. I literally just planted two junipers late last night because I picked them up and needed to get them in the ground.

I sprinkled probably a cup or so in each hole of our Arbor Green Fertilizer, which we have actively seen it revive trees and shrubs, and then also just improve the overall health altogether. Slow release is the way to go. There's nothing wrong with like a Holly-Tone, like a quick release fertilizer. It's going to do its thing, but it certainly doesn't have the staying power of a more professional grade fertilizer.

Doug: I've seen it applied in that method you're talking about, injecting, and it's the coolest thing.

Matt: It is.

Doug: Explain how the technician applies that fertilizer because I think it's going to surprise people, and how they use a grid pattern.

Matt: Yes, so like with our operation specifically, we've got a truck with a thousand gallon tank on it that holds a thousand gallons of water, and we'll mix our Arbor Green in there, but it's got to go constantly be agitating because it doesn't dissolve. It's not like putting sugar and hot water and you stir it around and it's all liquefied together. This stays as a powder.

We then take that truck out to a property and we've got a feeding probe that's got anywhere between a six and an eight-inch probe on the end that has four holes in the base of it. We use water as just the vehicle to get the fertilizer into the ground. We are injecting this water with our fertilizer in it, and it shoots-- depending on the pressure you're using, it shoots three to four feet in four directions.

As you're going through feeding and you're putting a hole every three feet or so, you're overlapping that and getting complete coverage. We've got the ratios that we're supposed to use for the proper amount of fertilizer going into the specific tree or shrub. We know what that is and calibrate everything accordingly. That's the method. It's just going and getting that overlapping coverage. It's a bigger tree. We're doing it the entirety of the drip zone, so all the way out.

It could be a 30-inch diameter tree, but we may be feeding 30-feet out from the base of the tree in each direction.

Doug: This is the time of the year when my local arborist comes out to look around, see what's going on, what happened during the season. Talk a little bit, before I let you go, about going to a property and some of the things that you're looking for early in the season here to prevent any problems as we get into the summer.

Matt: Sure. You've got different things that you're going to focus on throughout the year. We'll do property assessments right now where a lot of stuff is in dormancy, so you can have-- insect issues aren't going to be as prominent, but you can see the structure of the trees. You can notice cracks more easily, so you'll be able to point that stuff out specifically on trees.

We'll get a lot of calls with folks thinking their shrubs are dying after they've bloomed, and then we may have a late freeze or frost, and it zaps everything, and that can have a staying effect through even the summer because it can affect that new growth. We'll get a lot of those calls, and then as we get into the next four to six weeks, you're going to see insects start to emerge and hatch.

You're going to notice, with certain species of trees and shrubs, you may park under a tree and see a bunch of honeydew, sticky stuff on your car, and it's like, "What is leaking all over my car?" It can be directly related to the tree that you're parked under. We'll look at a lot of that, but it's really-- especially when it's in dormancy, it's going out, determining if a tree or shrub has issues based on just what we can see with our eye.

You may not be able to see some deadwood, but we can see a large limb that's got fungal decay coming off of it, and that's very obvious. It's like, "Hey, that needs to come out." Just different things like that as we're visiting a property.

Doug: All right, Matt, all great stuff. Great to talk to you again. Please keep us updated on that tree because that sounds like an amazing project. I've got to see those pictures. You've got to send those to me as soon as we finish here.

Matt: I'll send them to you.

Doug: As soon as we finish here, you better email me those pictures.

Matt: You got it. I'll send them right over.

Doug: All right, Matt. Thanks again, and we'll talk to you soon.

Matt: Thanks, Doug.

Doug: 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 a show. Do you have an idea for an episode or maybe a comment? Send us an email to podcasts@davey.com, that's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S @ D-A-V-E-Y.com. As always, we like to remind you on the Talking Trees Podcast, trees are the answer.

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