Help Your Trees Battle this Summer's Heat Wave

Josh Leo, manager of business development for Davey's Detroit market, discusses how the recent extreme heat can affect trees and what can be done to help them stay healthy during the rising summer temperatures.

In this episode we cover:  

• How is the summer heat impacting Josh? (:37)
• How is the heat impacting trees? (:53)
• How do you know how much water to put on your trees? (1:48)
• Climate change and temperature patterns (3:24)
• Signs of tree damage due to hot temperatures (4:18)
• How mulching can help trees power through the heat (4:58)
• Volcano mulching and its impact on trees (6:33)
• Josh's preferred mulching method (8:03)
• Can drip irrigation help trees? (9:25)
• How can Gator bags help trees? (10:25)
• What can you do for your trees when there is a lack of rain? (11:35) (13:33)
• Why is it important to have an arborist examine your trees? (14:32)
• How Josh got to Davey (15:50)
• What Josh does in his current role (17:35)

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

To learn more about summer tree care tips, read our blogs, Tree Care Checklist: How To Keep Trees Healthy This Summer and How To Help Trees & Plants During An Unexpected Heat Wave.

To learn more about mulching best practices and tips, read our blog, The Proper Way to Mulch Your Trees.

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 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 Josh Leo. He's manager of business development for the Davey business development team and he's based in Detroit. Josh, today we're talking about hot weather and how it affects trees. First off, how is it affecting you?

Josh Leo: Yes, it's been hot, that's for sure. Having to drink a lot more water than I have the last few weeks and sweating a little bit more, but we're getting through it.

Doug Oster: Let's talk about the trees and we might as well talk about water because they're going to need it too.

Josh Leo: Yes, absolutely. We've had a few pop-up storms here and there that have helped to add a little bit more moisture to the soil level for us, but watering is a massive key to plant health right now, especially for the next month to two months. August we get super hot normally here in Michigan as well. That's one of the things that I think a lot of homeowners overlook is the watering portion of the plant because the tree might be well established and looks okay, but we're just not giving it enough water, and Mother Nature's not providing enough.

Those big trees that are standing out there in your front or backyard, they need a lot of water as well to maintain. You might be starting to see yellow leaves starting to drop here or there, and that's one of the signs there that they need a little bit of help.

Doug Oster: As a homeowner, when they are going out to water their garden, they should also consider their trees. How do you know how much water to put on a tree?

Josh Leo: It varies per plant. Your new plants might not require as much water at one given time. I always like to use a standard measure, put the hose out or sprinkler out, let that run for anywhere between 20, 25 minutes. Do that about every other day during your hot periods. Make sure that water is not necessarily hitting the foliage of your smaller plants and that it is saturating into the soil.

Now there's always that fine balance as well, so you don't want the output of water to start pooling and running off. Running it at a slower rate will allow it to filter into the soil. We need it to get into that top six to eight inches level of that soil where your fibrous roots are at, your absorbing roots are taking all that moisture up. That's key. It does also transform over to your larger trees as well, but you're going to run that maybe a little bit longer.

I always get asked, but water is expensive. Yes, water is expensive, but it's also expensive to have to remove a plant and then replace that plant. Either way, they get you coming and going, but I would rather see established plants live a lot longer with just a little bit of effort with some supplemental watering.

Doug Oster: When you compare your water bill to the cost of taking out a decent-sized tree and replacing it, come on now.

Josh Leo: Exactly.

Doug Oster: Plus you have the beauty of that tree and certainly trees for most of us have a special meaning. They're part of the landscape. In Pittsburgh, we've seen a change in the amount of heat that we're receiving. Is it the same up where you are in Michigan as far as climate?

Josh Leo: Yes, I would say it was started off a little bit on the cooler side into April, May time. Then like I said, last two weeks we've really spiked up and the heat index I believe today is into the hundreds, it was yesterday. Yes, it's been hot, and we're not necessarily seeing the stress yet. It's coming.

Doug Oster: Let's talk a little bit about that. What are some of the indications? You mentioned some yellow leaves and dropping. Is there anything else we should be looking at in our trees when we get hot weather during the summer?

Josh Leo: Most of it is going to be more of a visual effect that you're going to notice. Of course the yellowing leaves, the early dropping, some defoliation. You'll also start to see some of those leaves start to wilt up a little bit and maybe even start to droop down. Different trees will show different characteristics and those are some telltale signs to just keep an eye out that, "Hey, I need a little bit more to drink than what I've been receiving."

Doug Oster: We've talked about watering, but also part of the component of this I would assume, has to be mulching too, right?

Josh Leo: Exactly, yes. That is always a topic of discussion, especially with homeowners, is having a proper mulch ring installed around your trees. Now, you'll listen to different standards and people say you need to have that mulch ring go out to the drip line of the plant material and three inches of mulch and have it flare out at the end. That is all correct. Sometimes you don't have that ability in maybe a smaller postage stamp-size front yard or, your space is limited on the amount of mulch that you could actually put out there.

Any bit of mulch that you can put, I always like three to four-foot ring and you're going to be able to at least regulate that temperature around that flare where a lot of your absorption can take place is going to help. Mulch is key. Then making sure that moisture stays there and isn't running off. You'll drive through specific sites and you may see what they call volcano mulch, where mulch is piled up onto the trunks of the trees. Watering those types of plants is going to be very difficult because that water is going to hit and then run away from the plant. Also, it's got other adverse effects as well from adventitious root growth and rot and things like that can happen as well. Mulching correctly is also key.

Doug Oster: Josh, I was wondering when the V word would come into our conversation because certainly, on a podcast like this, we talk about that horrific volcano mulch probably every other show. I'm sure listeners are getting sick of it, but let me tell you, this is a terrible problem that drives us crazy. I ask this question a lot. "Hey, what's it like when I'm driving around with you, Josh, and you see that people volcano mulching." Tell me what I'm going to hear when you're driving around and you see that volcano mulch.

Josh Leo: You're going to hear me sigh and see me shake my head. There's so much literature out there nowadays on proper mulch rings and the proper way to install it and the way that it needs to be on new plants and even on our older plants that even YouTube will tell you how to properly mulch your trees. It amazes me that that's still the misinformation about it. I've even had that conversation with homeowners where they'll say, "I did put mulch." Yes, you did, but it's not perfect.

We get out there, we educate them on how that needs to look. A lot of times that's it. You show them one or two times and then it clicks, that light bulb goes off, and then hopefully you don't have to do it again with them, but you just got to keep spreading the proper message to the homeowners and business owners that that is not the correct way to mulch your plants.

Doug Oster: Do you have a favorite type of mulch, how it should be? Ground or anything like that, or is a good bark mulch enough?

Josh Leo: I go back and forth. I'm not a big dye mulch guy and I never have been. There's different ideologies behind all that. Mine is double-shredded hardwood. I've been a giant fan of that for a long time. I like the way it looks visually. It breaks down over a steady period of time. It is adding organic matter back to the soil. It looks good, I can turn it over if I don't want to do it every year. I can just turn it over because it's still blocky enough that it looks good.

The one shredded stuff is good, but then I also noticed that maybe the water doesn't necessarily penetrate because it's more or less just big blocks of wood. It just falls through. Then the triple shredded really looks visually pleasing when you first put it in, but if it doesn't stay somewhat wet, it'll start to blow away, especially with the mowers and blowers, and just environmental wind will do it. That happy medium for me is double-shredded hardwood. I really do like that.

Doug Oster: In the ornamental garden, a lot of times people will run drip irrigation. Is that an option for trees? Do you ever see that for trees? Is that something we should do?

Josh Leo: Yes, I do see that. It is common in a lot of landscapes, especially when you get down to maybe the Birmingham Bloomfield areas, you'll start to see that more into their landscapes here in Michigan and all over. You'll start seeing them introducing that. The nice thing about those drip irrigations is lack of runoff and then lack of evaporation that happens. That water is being directed right into that root zone at a slow rate. Back to the earlier conversation when we talk about the absorption. That really does help pay off. I always tell homeowners, she'll tell me the same thing, "I have three kids and I don't have time because I got baseball and dance and other things." Drip irrigation can be your friend and you can set it on a timer and you can have that go off at four o'clock in the morning and your plants are well hydrated for the day.

Doug Oster: I've seen those things that they put around smaller trees like a bag sort of thing that fills up with water. Is that a good idea?

Josh Leo: Yes, they're gator bags. They have different types of those, they have the green ones that have a conical shape and they attach to the top and got the membrane on the bottom, probably holds about 5 gallons of water. Then you have these little brown ones that almost look like a little bit of a mulch ring. I do like those, but the one thing that you run into them is, you have to refill them up and that becomes sometimes a labor-intensive thing, especially if you have it on a bunch of trees, but it's better than nothing.

You have a tree out in the back 40 of your property and you can't necessarily extend a hose that direction, irrigation lines don't run that way. It's really nice to be able to have a gator bag that you could go out, put 5 or 6 gallons of water in, and then it would slowly just draw that water in over time. You just have to remember to go out and double-check it.

Doug Oster: For homeowners, especially homeowners that have a garden, periods of heat without rain is rather depressing. You can't really do what you need to do for the plants moisture-wise. You can keep them alive, but you can't really give them what a good rain can give them. As a tree professional, do you feel any of that? Like, "Another week of hot dry is not going to be good for the trees."

Josh Leo: Yes, and we talk about it a lot even with our plant health care technicians, and when they're out there talking with homeowners and business owners about it. That's where we have to educate them on making sure that at least the essential nutrients are applied back to the plants. Some deep root fertilizations, using the use of liquid humates, even introducing polyphosphates or PP30s into the landscape to help during these periods of drought.

Those essential nutrients that may be in the soil, but if we don't have any type of water moving them through the soil so the plant can absorb it, it can just sit there. We've started introducing liquid humates more and polyphosphates more into our landscapes to help with this time. Liquid humates is always good across the board. It's a biostimulant, so it's good for the soil, helps increase surface area for fibrous roots for absorption, and then you have the polyphosphates, which not getting too technical with it, but it helps to keep those guard cells a little bit larger on the leaf. It helps regulate gas exchange so it's not necessarily losing as much water. There's different parts of that that help.

Doug Oster: When we're going through these periods in summer of not a lot of water and extreme heat sometimes, is there anything else we should think about doing when we're thinking about our trees?

Josh Leo: Yes. A lot of times I'll talk to homeowners, and maybe during this time you're not necessarily thinking of pruning your trees, but opening up the canopy of your plant and reducing some of that leaf mass because as a tree, a tree will get hot. It'll overheat itself, and the way that it cools itself is by shedding those inner leaves. If we can get in there and properly prune those out, thin that canopy, increase the branching structure on the plant, open that scaffolding up, let the air flow through the canopy, that will all help as well. It's a holistic approach from the roots to the shoots that you have to look at to keep your plants healthy from January through December and everywhere in between.

Doug Oster: Certainly what we've seen here in Pittsburgh is just consistent warmer temperatures, having your arborist take a look at that tree. We all know that pruning, depending on the tree, has to be done at the right time. Getting your arborist to take a look and decide where that's going to happen is important.

Josh Leo: It is super important. What I would tell my clients is, if I haven't reached out to you, please reach out to me and we'll schedule an appointment. For Davey, it's a free appointment. It's free education to the homeowner or business owner for us to come out there, walk the property, evaluate the plant material that's on-site, all the way from your foundation shrubs to your largest trees, and give you just some input on what the plants may need and then set up that plan for you.

We all understand budgets is a big thing for everybody but then set that plan in motion. That way it's maybe a two-year plan for pruning, or get the deep root feeding done on your plant material in the spring, and the liquid humates and polyphosphates done in the later summer when the plants really need it. Different things like that we can set up so not one part of the season you're getting hit with a large bill, you can spread it out over time.

Doug Oster: Tell me a little bit about your journey into your job and ending up in Davey.

Josh Leo: It's funny the way it worked out is back in the early 2000s, and I was just a wee tadpole, I was cutting lawns for a living. I had my own little business going, and I was going to college, going to Oakland University. At the time, Oakland U did not have a horticulture program that struck my interest. They had bioscience and things like that. There was a community college down the road, Oakland Community College, and they had a horticulture program, two-year program.

I was trying to do both at the same time, and it didn't work out well. I ended up transferring everything over to the Oakland Community College and finishing my studies there. While attending Oakland Community, a Davey Tree representative came to the office to talk to the class about career opportunities and things like that. It really piqued my interest because Davey, at the time and now forthcoming, has always been one of those leaders in the industry. I just liked the way that they had their plans laid out. It's an employee-owned company. Back in 2004, I hired in at the Auburn Hills branch as a climber and worked my way to be a plant healthcare technician, to a sales arborist, to assistant manager, to district manager, running the facility. Then now moving off to the business development role for Michigan and Toledo area. It's been a heck of a ride and I've enjoyed it.

Doug Oster: Tell me a little bit about your job. I don't know what you do for Davey.

Josh Leo: As a business developer, we talk with larger clients or HOAs about the problems that they may have with trees and shrubs and base maintenance issues where it comes to mowing and string trimming, snow removal, de-icing, all the way to other environmental issues as well like even pond mitigations and taking care of invasive species, all of the above. Tree inventories. We try and bring solutions to clients and prospects that may have a problem that they don't know where to go to. Davey can be that one-stop shop for them.

Doug Oster: Josh, I wish you'd come to some of these HOAs down here in Pittsburgh because they're all volcano mulching. Every time I go there and speak, I tell them they're volcano mulching. I tell them to change it, but every time I go back, they're still volcano mulching. It drives me nuts. All right, Josh, thanks so much for the information. Thanks for helping us out with our trees during this hot weather. Sure appreciate it. Great information. I'm sure we'll talk to you soon.

Josh Leo: Thanks a lot, Doug. I really appreciate the time.

Doug Oster: Seems like we're always hoping for rain. It makes our lives as tree lovers a little bit easier. Now, tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I am your host, Doug Oster. Do me a big favor, subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss a show. If you've got an idea for an episode, 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'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

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