Why End-of-Summer Tree Checks are Important

As National Tree Check Month comes to a close, Jason Hayes, district manager of Davey's Southeast Seattle office, shares tips on how you can properly inspect trees affected by pests and changes in the weather.   

In this episode we cover:  

• What invasive species are in the Seattle region? (:41)
• How do we stop invasive species? (1:26)
• How does having a diverse landscape combat invasive species? (1:53)
• What are stewartia trees? (2:35)
• Seattle's summer weather (3:58)
• Is Seattle's climate the most ideal for growing trees? (4:51)
• Importance of inspecting the tree canopy (5:51)
• Do Seattle trees experience heat stress? (6:48)
• Best watering practices to combat heat stress (8:36)
• How to check for tree pests and diseases (11:05) (12:02)
• When is the best time to fertilize your trees? (12:51)
• Jason's Davey journey (13:56)
• Cabling and bracing trees (16:15)

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

To learn more tree inspection best practices and common spring and summer pests, read our blogs, Most Common Questions about Summer Tree Care and Identifying Common Spring and Summer Tree Insects (Pests). 

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. This week, I'm joined by Jason Hayes. He's a district manager in the Southeast Seattle office of the Davey Tree Expert Company. We are celebrating the end of Tree Check Month, which is August. Jason, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Jason Hayes: I'm doing great today. Thanks for having me.

Doug: With tree check month, let's start with invasive species. Out your way, do you have a lot of invasive species?

Jason: We have several invasive species. One invasive species is the bronze birch borer, which over the last decade has been causing terrible damage to the canopies of European white birch trees. That's one major pest in the area. Another more recent pest in the landscape is viburnum leaf beetle, which primarily focuses on viburnums, which are shrubs. They can completely defoliate plants in a pretty short amount of time.

Doug: We've got that one too, and I've had my plants defoliated by it. How do we stop invasives?

Jason: There's several things. Bronze birch borer, the best thing for bronze birch borer is keeping the trees healthy, keeping them regularly watered, making sure they're well fertilized, taken care of. Then we can also provide some systemic treatments, whether it's through the soil or straight trunk injections to protect the trees from the beetle itself.

Doug: How about planting ideas? We talk a lot about this on the show, just diversity in planting.

Jason: Yes, a lot of people like the birch trees for the white bark. I recommend-- sometimes the trees are in such disrepair that we can't save those trees. I encourage them to replant with a variety of tree that's resistant to other invasives. Sometimes I look at like Kousa dogwoods or stewartias that have interesting bark, provide flowers. It depends on people's personal preference. I always encourage looking for trees that are less problematic with pests.

Doug: You mentioned one of my favorites, which is a stewartia. Talk a little bit about that tree because out here in the East, it is not planted as often as it should be.

Jason: Yes, stewartia is one of my favorite go-to trees in the landscape. They have very interesting bark in the wintertime. It's flaky, bronzish, and they flower late in the summertime. You get a single white flower with the yellow center. They require very little pruning. Their root system's not very invasive, so they do really well in planting strips, and they're slow growing. I recommend that a lot, a lot of times in people's yards, landscapes, but then also like in multi-family housing or condo complexes, because they do well in limited growing planting strips.

Doug: When that thing blooms, oh boy, it is something, huh?

Jason: Yes, it is. You're right, it hasn't been planted that much out here. Occasionally I'll see one that was planted like 80 years ago, and you might see a real specimen that's big, which I've seen a couple of those, which is pretty cool.

Doug: What has your season been like this year?

Jason: Here in the Pacific Northwest, it's actually been more of a normal Pacific Northwest summer. We had a long, cold, wet spring. Actually, summer didn't start till about July 5th like normal. Then here in August, the last few days, it's felt like it's been November. It was only like, let's say on Friday, it was 62 degrees and pouring down rain. You would have thought it was November. We've actually-- and it's raining on and off today. Then it's going to spike. We're supposed to get back into the 80s coming up here on Labor Day weekend. It's been a roller coaster, but we haven't had the significant hot temperatures that we've had in the last few summers. It's been actually better for the trees.

Doug: Looking at it from our perspective out East, we look at your climate as like the ideal climate for growing. Are we right on that or are we just dreaming?

Jason: I guess you're right on that because in the Pacific Northwest, our summer's daylight time is a lot longer than it is back East because we're further North. In the summertime, when it is hot and sunny though, the sun here seems to be a lot more intense because being further North, you're closer to the sun this time of year. That is ideal for plants. We get enough water, moisture, and then we have extended amount of sunlight in the summertime. Friends of ours, they actually set the record years ago for growing the largest pumpkin. They [inaudible 00:05:48].

Doug: For Tree Check Month, let's talk about actually-- we've talked about invasives and what's going on in your area. Let's talk about actually checking the trees, starting with inspecting the canopy. Tell me about that when you show up to a property, what you're looking for.

Jason: When I first show up to a property, I'm always looking up in the upper canopy of the trees. Here in the Northwest, we have a lot of big, tall conifers, cedar trees. I'm looking at the top to see if they're sparse, if they're defoliating, if they have dead tops, dead tip dieback. I'm always looking for twigs and things that have died back in the upper canopies. Then depending on the deciduous trees they have, is there a lot of leaf litter on the ground? Recent leaves that are dropping dieback in certain parts of the canopy. Just things that catch my eye.

Doug: Do you get much heat stress out there because we've had a very dry, hot summer here, and I can see already trees starting to change color, which is way too early, and they've just been stressed.

Jason: Sure, here in the Northwest, yes, we get a lot of heat stress. This summer has been more normal, but the past, I don't know, 5 to 10, 8 summers has been really hot and dry. Let's see, three years ago we had, or maybe it's two or three years ago, we had what they referred to as the heat dome, and it got up-- it was 112, 115 in certain places here in the Northwest, and it just cooked trees.

I still see that damage that's just now showing up, because even though it hasn't been that hot and dry this summer, trees are slow to respond. That stress that they took on two summers ago might just now be starting to show up, and that can be ongoing. I'm seeing more and more dead trees all over the place.

Doug: How did you work in those temperatures?

Jason: How did we work? Our crews, they're out, I think we might've gone home earlier that day, but it was weird, it only lasted for like a day, and then it dropped back into the 90s. When I looked like-- I don't even know-- like people down in Texas, I have no idea how they function down there. Our crews here, when it gets to be about 75, they start complaining it's hot. Yes, it was pretty miserable, that stretch. This year we've only had a couple, I think maybe two or three days in the 90s.

Doug: For heat stress, let's talk a little bit about watering and the best way to do it.

Jason: That's the biggest thing I push when I go out on property. First of all, I'll look around and if people's yards are like completely brown and dry, you can tell a client who's watering their trees and who's not. Most of the time I'm showing up and then there's something wrong with their trees, it all comes down to water. They're just not watering enough. I will tell clients, I'm like, any amount of water you can give the tree is better than nothing.

Whether that's putting-- a lot of times I like-- if it's just a single tree that you're trying to water is those little small round metal sprinklers that you put on the end of the hose and just let those run. They put out a lot of water pretty quickly. Those can help saturate the soil. The other things Davey Tree can do is we do deep watering where we can actually come in and do a root injection, soil injection where we're injecting water right into the root zone. That's very similar to the way we also deep root fertilized trees.

Watering is-- it's more of an art than a complete science because you're always, you need to check the soil because every soil is going to be different. Water is going to either run off or it's going to penetrate down. I always carry with me a soil probe when I'm talking to clients. They're like, "Well, I water the tree or I have irrigation." It's like, but just because you have irrigation doesn't mean the water is getting down to the tree where it needs to or your hedge.

I always demonstrate with a soil probe and take a probe and a section of the soil. That's really the only way you can tell. Then the other extreme is I'll have clients, they'll show me their trees dying and it'll look like it's completely droughted. You start probing the soil and come to find out they're like over-watering trees. Where they're sitting in water and the poor thing's just-- it's drowning. You have to be careful of that too.

Doug: Killed with kindness. That's too much water. Mulching, of course. We talk a lot about mulching on here. We're not even going to mention volcano mulch because we talk a lot about it. Just, with heat stress, you put water on, mulch is going to help, right?

Jason: Yes.

Doug: Okay, so what about for Tree Check Month, checking for pests and diseases?

Jason: Checking for pests and diseases. Right now, pests, wood-boring insects, they're active right now. The beetles are emerging. We haven't seen it here in the Seattle area yet, but the emerald ash borer, we haven't seen it in the Seattle area yet, but it has been found in Portland and it's been found in Vancouver, British Columbia. It's only a matter of time before it's here in the Seattle area. Things to check for though, is like dieback in the upper canopy and the beetle itself. Twice it was found where the beetle was crawling on somebody and they reported it.

Doug: How about diseases? What can we look for on a tree for diseases?

Jason: Diseases, I had a client, they have these trees called circus trees. They're these London plains that have been grafted to form different shapes. They're London plain trees, but there's a bunch of sporadic dieback on certain twigs. After taking a closer look at it, it was actually-- it's a fungus or a twig bite that's affecting the tree and it's sporadic dieback. If you see any sporadic dieback on the twigs, something to look for. That is solely related to the fact that we've had this hot temperature and then we get these periods of cool moisture, which is ideal for leaf fungus and twig bite.

Doug: As far as fertilization is concerned, is this a good time of the year to be doing that? Talk a little bit about how you guys apply that fertilizer.

Jason: Davey Tree has their own patented arbor green fertilizer that is slow release. It resides in the soil for a whole year. We apply it year round. Depending on the time of season, every part of the season has its own benefit. Right now is a good time to add it because you're adding water to the root zone and then the fertilizers there is set in the soil and it's ready there for the tree to uptake it. Then going into the fall season when roots start growing, it's a huge benefit.

You're putting the water in and the nutrients make it readily available going into the fall season. Then you can say the same thing in the spring. Spring too, you're putting in the water there for the tree to use it. The fertilizers there as the tree starts to grow coming out of dormancy.

Doug: Tell me a little bit about your journey to your job. How did you end up working as a district manager for Davey?

Jason: That's a very good question. I went to school at Purdue University. I had set off to Purdue to study forestry. I wanted to study for wildlife management which was in the school of forestry. Upon taking that classes there, it was brought to the forefront. All the students were in wildlife management but there were no jobs in wildlife management or very few jobs. I bounced around the forestry department and I ended up taking an horticulture class at Purdue.

Purdue was one of the only universities I think at the time that actually taught tree climbing and individual tree care. By our lab, we would go out in the cemetery and we would climb big oak trees. That's where I learned how to climb. Then the class was all individual tree care. I saw there was potential lab jobs there. Through that class, I took a part-time job working for a small tree company while I went through school. Then once I graduated from Purdue, I had two years experience in the field. Went to the job fair in the forestry department and Davey Tree was there. I accepted a job and moved out to the Northwest to the Seattle office and became a foreman pretty quick, ran a crew.

I did that for eight years working here at Davey. Then I left Davey Tree to work for a landscape company for some high-end estates where I was the arborist on these estates. I did that for a while. Then eight years ago, Davey Tree reached out to me and they wanted me to come back as a sales arborist. I got into the sales and I've did that for the last eight years. Then this year I got promoted to a district manager after their other manager of 41 years had retired. That's how I got to sit where I'm at now.

Doug: All right. Before I let you go for Tree Check Month, let's finish up with cabling, bracing of trees. Is that something you do a lot of?

Jason: Yes, that's something we do quite a bit. A lot of times-- well, we'll do all kinds of different parts of cabling and bracing. Sometimes on our big Douglas fir trees, maybe they were topped a long time ago, whether it was by man or from a storm, and then they have two tops and we'll put a cable up there to help support those. Some of the big leaf maples, big spreading trees, we'll put Cobra systems in there.

If you're not familiar with the Cobra, it's more of a rope elastic system and not a rigid system. We do quite a bit of cabling. Bracing, we do bolt-- like I have a job coming up, client has a big oak tree, it's got a horizontal crack through it, and we're going to put some bolts, some amenize and bolts in it to help hold that together. Yes, we do not a ton, but we do enough of it.

Doug: Tell me a little bit about the feeling of saving a big oak tree like that. That must be really cool.

Jason: Yes, we don't have a lot of oak trees around here. Yes, it always is cool, whether it's a small Japanese maple that's split apart and you're able to put a bolt through it and save it and put a cable in it, or a big historic tree where that you could cable. It's always gratifying to be able to save a big tree.

Doug: All right, Jason, thanks so much for all that information. Appreciate it. Celebrating Tree Check Month. I think Tree Check Month is every month for you though.

Jason: Yes, pretty much it's every day. Every day I'm going out meeting with clients, inspecting their trees and seeing what we can do to improve the health of them.

Doug: Thanks so much for being on the show.

Jason: All right, well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

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 an episode. If you've got an idea for a show, maybe a comment, there's a couple of ways you can get ahold of us. Send us an email to podcasts@davey.com, that's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S @ D-A-V-E-Y.com, or you can click the link at the end of our show notes to text us a fan mail message. We'd love to hear from you and your ideas might be in a future podcast. As always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

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