Importance of Diversity in the Landscape and Planting to Replace

Josh Fritz from Hartney Greymont, a Davey company, in the Boston North Shore office, talks about Doug's dying oak forest and how he can slowly replace the trees that have succumbed to oak wilt, as well as why planting a diversity of species in your landscape is so important. 

In this episode we cover:  

• Planting diversity (0:35)
• Street trees (2:03)
• What to replace a Bradford pear with (3:39)
• Replacing Doug's oak forest (5:32)
• Understory trees (7:25)
• Spring planting in Boston (8:51)
• Evergreens for forested areas (10:44)
• Red buds (12:43)
• Winter in Boston (14:19)
• Sugar maples (15:38)
• A tree Josh wishes was planted more (16:35)

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

To learn more about Oak trees read our blogs Tree Identification: Do I Have An Oak Tree? or Avoid Pruning Oak Trees in Summer – Oak Wilt Causes

To learn more about evergreens, check our blog page.

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 more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more, because here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer. I'm joined again this week by Josh Fritz. He's a district manager in the Boston area for Hartney-Graymont, a Davey company. Josh, welcome back to the show.

Josh Fritz: How are you doing, Doug?

Doug Oster: I'm doing pretty good. I had a suggestion from a listener. I'm always talking about this oak forest that I have here on my property that is in decline, that has oak wilt. The listener said, well, what should we substitute for those oak trees? What about diversity in planting? That's why I wanted to talk to you, Josh. Let's talk about diversity in changing it up with trees and not just planting one monocrop of trees.

Josh Fritz: Yes, absolutely. I used to live in Charlotte, North Carolina. When I first moved there was a street covered-- It was, I would say, about two miles, and it had nothing but sycamores on it. Every year, those sycamores got anthracnose, and it got to the point where they're getting a lot of dieback on those. A lot of those newly planted trees, they only last about three years. It's really important that you have a diversity of species when you're doing your planting so you can avoid those problems.

Doug Oster: That's a thing we've seen probably every municipality, where they want all the trees to look the same and this long line of trees. Whether it's elms, or ashes in our case, they all go by the wayside with some problem, whether it's disease or an insect. In that case, what are you thinking for some municipality to mix it up? Plant--? This is a mantra for this podcast, right tree, right place. What would you do for street trees? Just mix it up?

Josh Fritz: Absolutely. There's a good portion of plants that can be suitable as a street tree. Red maples, one of them. A lot of people back in the '80s did a lot of the Norway maples. The Norway maples have poor structure. If you could substitute with a red maple that can handle the compaction soil, that would work. European hornbeams is another tree. They have some really good varieties that are fastidious, which is basically narrow trees that aren't going to get really tall. They won't get into the wires. As far as disease and insects problems, they're pretty rock solid.

There's also parotia. Parotia is a really rock solid tree. It also has a really fall color. They have red and orange mixed in. Again, they're going to be a tree that's not-- Have a lot of insects and disease, and they can handle compaction. Just those three trees, if you can mix them up and actually bring in some ornamental trees that have the flowering but don't have the fruit, that'd be great.

Doug Oster: the other problem I see a lot in our area right now are those Bradford pears everywhere. I think every arborist I've talked to has said, "That thing is just an awful tree." Because of its structure. It's a cracking tree and also an invasive tree. In some areas here around Pittsburgh, they're talking about removing them, about banning them. What would you replace a Bradford pear with out there in the sun? Same three trees?

Josh Fritz: No, if you wanted something flowering, you could probably go to, I'd say, a Carolina silver bell. They're a great tree. They're native down in the southeast, up into the mountains. They can handle a tougher environment as far as soil. They're not going to get too tall. Again, they're going to stay underneath 20 feet. It's not going to get in the wires. Red bloods are further south, are great trees. You get up into the Boston area. As far as what we'll go to is a Japanese lilac tree. They get the same flowering that a Bradford pear will.

Structure-wise, they're better structured. They can handle the tough environment. They also give you that bark that gives you year-round interest. It's like a orangey-brown bark on it that looks really spectacular in a flush blanket of snow. That's a good tree.

Doug Oster: Those are great suggestions. In my case, and again, I've talked about it at length on the podcast, oak wilt came in. I have a forest of huge mature oaks. I can't really afford to treat them. There's just too many and they're too big and it's too much money. I'm having them removed as this happens. This is like a slow process, where one will go one year and maybe two more years. I do want to put something else in there in their place. One of the trees that I've chosen was American hornbeam. Tell me the difference between the American hornbeam and the European hornbeam. Is it a different looking tree or grows different?

Josh Fritz: Not too much. The structure's a little different. European hornbeam is more a vase-shaped tree. If you have the fastidious, obviously, it's going to be like a narrow oval tree. The American hornbeam, very similar to your beech tree, that structure, American beech. That's a great tree to plant in a forest because it can handle the same environment that an oak would. That'd be one I'd suggest.

Doug Oster: One tree I can't even keep up with is called a pawpaw. That thing suckers like crazy. I've got a hundred pawpaws up in an area where I started with two, but they're really hard to move. They don't like being transplanted. They have that deep tap root. I move six to try and get two. I'm moving those around in the forest a little bit too, because they're an understory tree. Is there anything else you can think of for that understory-type tree or to replace? When those big oaks go, I do have some sun when that oak is removed. I think some of the trees that we've already talked about would work in there.

Josh Fritz: Oh yes, absolutely. Especially in your area. Redbuds would work well there. Dogwoods, if you don't have like afternoon sun, they would help as well. I would steer away from crab apples. They need full sun. If you go to like, again, the Carolina silverbell, that's a native tree. That would work well. If it's a wet area, you can go to tupelo. Tupelo is a great tree that in the environment of like a forest environment, they do really well in that environment.

Doug Oster: Arborists love that tree and tell us why.

Josh Fritz: Oh, that fall colors is spectacular. Not only that it does give you a little bit of fruit, so the birds love it as well. It does give habitat for your critters around you. Yes, they love the tree as well.

Doug Oster: That's a great idea. I know the tree and I've seen the tree here in our public gardens. That's a great idea. I'm going to plant some of those. Let's talk a little bit about when I am replacing this forest, this time of the year, about spring planting. Tell me in the Boston area, what your planting season is like early in the season.

Josh Fritz: Yes, sure. This time of year, we're focusing on deciduous trees. A lot of nurseries, they still have stock from last year. We can get a good deal on some of the plants. Those trees are in dormancy. Once the soil is thawed and we can actually open up the soil and plant those trees in there and it gives them good jumpstart for the growing season. We have to steer away from doing planting around June. You want those trees to at least have some time to get established before the July and August sun. We can plant during that time. You just have to make sure you have irrigation. That's the key. If you don't have irrigation, we can jump in late March, early April and put some deciduous trees out there.

If we're going to do evergreens, we refrain planting those trees until about September. Again, once those go on the ground, they can get established for the winter and allow those type of trees not to get dried up in the winter. Because if you plant it around November, those winter winds will definitely get desiccation on those trees. That's what we'd be doing.

Doug Oster: How about for May-for-fall planting? You got any cool evergreens I could put in into that forested area?

Josh Fritz: Forested area. I'm a big fan of Norway spruces. They got a good range as far as what they can handle. A lot of people don't think about white spruces, as well. They still got that bluish tint to them, but they don't have the problems that a Colorado blue spruce has. The reason why the Colorado blue spruce is more of an alkaline soil and us in the east, our soil is really acidic. It's a losing battle. If we put those things in the ground, it'd be a high maintenance tree that you'd have to do a lot of plant healthcare to keep it thriving. Those two evergreens, I like them.

A lot of people-- White pines are great trees, especially if you can find them in a forest environment. If you grab them from the nursery, they can get a little bit of dieback, but they'd still survive. If you can get one in your forest, for example, if you can dig it up and plant it in an area where one of your oaks has been removed, that would be a perfect environment for it to replenish the forest for you.

Doug Oster: In the fall, I would just look for a little sapling of a white pine, get as much of the roots as I can, and then plant it in one of these open spots. That's a great idea.

Josh Fritz: Yes. Save you some money and it actually replants the forest. Because those little white pines, they're just waiting for the sun to open up. If you can get them in an area, they'll just take off.

Doug Oster: I wanted to go back to redbud because there's a lot of different redbuds out there. Do you play around with the different varieties or is there a basic one you like to plant?

Josh Fritz: Good question. Up here, we can get redbuds that are actually white buds, we call them. The reason why we get the diversity up here is they can handle the cold winters up here. As far as up in northern New Hampshire, they thrive. Yes, we can do that. There's a new variety. I think it's a Minnesota winter or something like that. Anyway, that specific species is a cold hardy redbud. We can plant those. That work well. Some of the plants in the Boston area, even further north, the ones that have the burgundy leaves. It's rolling the dice on those ones.

It's just a little too cold sometimes that you could have a mature tree die in a cold snap in the winter. Those are the ones we steer towards as far as planting redbuds in the New England area.

Doug Oster: Yes, we have a few of those white bud varieties down here. They will do it down here. That would give you something unique and interesting. I want to talk to you a little bit about your season. What was the winter like for you guys? How are you feeling coming out of winter into the spring for planting?

Josh Fritz: Yes, it's a great question. It was an interesting winter. We didn't have a lot of snow, but we had a lot of rain. Actually, in Boston area, we've got a surplus as far as rain right now, which is good. The only problem is with a lot of rain, we're going to have a lot of fungus problems right off the get go. We're already preparing for that right now. The good thing about all the rain we've been having, our early planting has been great because we haven't had to worry about the watering. It has been a warm, wet winter. It seems like it's been that for the past three or four years.

We haven't had that really cold snap as far as the blanket of snow on the ground as we've done in the previous. Especially when I was a kid, we always had snow. We're not getting it as much anymore. I've been talking to some newscasters about sugar maples. Our sugar maples in Massachusetts, the natural range is actually creeping further north than what it has been since I was a kid, which is alarming to me. As an arborist, I get to see all this observations day in and day out with my job. Seeing less sugar maples in Massachusetts and it creeping further north up towards northern Vermont, that's a bit alarming to me as far as the climate change that I've been seeing.

Doug Oster: I've been hearing that from a lot of arborists too, specifically with the sugar maple, because it is a favorite tree, a great shade tree. We've talked about a lot of trees. Do you have one more in your back pocket that's like, "This is one of my favorites, it doesn't get planted that much. I wish people would plant it a little bit more."

Josh Fritz: A lot of people don't think about sourwoods. Sourwoods are great trees. They're native down in the southeast, up in the Appalachian Trail. They can handle the rocky soil and they're a great tree. They take a little bit of time to get established, but once they get established, they're great. They give you that really bright red fall color. The structure is a little interesting because it's not straight. It's got a little twist to it. It does have that nice little white finger flowers that you get in the early fall. The contrast between the red and the white flowers, they're spectacular. As far as disease and insects, they don't have a lot. That would be one I'd like to see people plant more. That would be a great tree.

Doug Oster: Do you think I can get away with it in my forest, or does it need more sun?

Josh Fritz: No, I don't think you need a lot of sun. As long as you have partial sun, I think you'll be fine. It's a good understory plant. I've had one of my clients in Andover, Mass and it's a shaded area. It's a tough area. It's right against the patio and a fence. The soil didn't need a lot. It doesn't have a lot of soil there, and it's thriving. Again, it took about two or three years to get it established, but it's doing great right now, and the clients love it.

Doug Oster: Josh, you gave me a lot of great ideas, but now I've got to go to work. Now, I've got to actually plant and transplant this fall, but that'll give me something to do. I do want to thank you for giving me all these suggestions.

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Doug Oster: We all know diversity in planting is so important. Thanks again for joining me for the show. It was great to talk to you.

Josh Fritz: Always, Doug. Have a good one.

Doug Oster: Tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees Podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Do me a favor, subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss an episode. If you have an idea for a show, you might hear it on this podcast. Send us an email to podcasts@Davey.com. That's podcasts@Davey.com. As always, we like to remind you on the Talking Trees Podcast, trees are the answer.

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