Lawn Care Forum banner

Dying Trees-Need to Save

4K views 21 replies 12 participants last post by  Kiril 
#1 ·
Have a customer who has several small > 1" crimson king maples in his back yard.

My lawn crew in the essence of not wanting to leave any area un trimmed, has managed to wack the trunks of these trees causing them a little stress.


The customer called me this morning Irate and Demanded that they be nursed back to health.

Whats the best thing to do?

Wrap the trees to cover the damage and fertilize with 10-10-10 around the dripline? Water with tree bag to help nurse back to health?


Thanks
 
#2 ·
Don't girdle the tree with trimmers and/or don't plant/maintain lawn right up to the trunk of a tree. If for some insane reason the client wants lawn up to the trunk .... then get a trimmer guard.

http://www.forestry-suppliers.com/product_pages/View_Catalog_Page.asp?mi=4060

Heck, might as get them since your crew can't trim around young trees without damaging them.

Short of time, the only thing you can do now is make sure it is not under any other stress.
 
#4 ·
another option. if its only a few trees, at less than 1" caliper, assuming a whip won't hurt the check book, and will keep you form having to spend time/money/aggrivation trying to keep these small trees alive.

Lets say for a moment that at the end of the season the customer is not happy with the health of the trees and you end up having to replace them anyhow... call it a preemptive strike...dig the old ones plant them in your yard, and then give the customer new ones.

4" corrugated perforated pipe split on one side does the same thing as the trimmer guards posted above...
 
#6 ·
Try some good organic fertilizer around the drip line. Something like this would be excellent for this application:

http://www.espoma.com/p_consumer/quick_sol_overview.html

I would then use some Tanglefoot pruning sealer and seal up the wounds. Its pretty good stuff.

Come back every 4-5 days and water nicely around the drip line.

Apologize profusely and replace them if the trees die.

Sock your employees pay for the damage he caused!
 
#7 ·
If the tree is not girdled all the way around it should be ok. A customer cannot expect you to trim all the way to the base of a tree without damage in most cases. I have a few places where leylands are planted that I just applied RoundUp to kill the grass under them, it was aggravating getting all the RoundUp on the grass and not on the trees but its saves me 10-15 minutes of trimming each visit and it not only looks better but it has prevented trunk damage from a trimmer. If a tree ring or corrugated black pipe is not an option, ask customer if you can spray a 6" circle around the tree with RoundUp. Make sure you protect the trunk from over spray.

Around here you cannot get bermuda to grow in the shade, but it seems to grow under leylands just fine. :)
 
#8 ·
Just today, at a new lawn that was grown way out of proportion, one of our crew members semi girdled 3 small maples planted along a row. I line trimmed around them first leaving the Zoysia growing outward 8 inches from the trunks. The well trained and always eager to get my back helper cut the grass down for me????
I know that this will cause some uproar with the organic crowd, but go to wally mart and get some undercoating spray for your auto or get some pruning sealer and treat those ligature marks on the bark. I agree, however if the trunks are girdled all the way around, then replace them because the trees will probably sap out and fungus will invade or worse..........insects. The callus mechanism in small trees will be speedy but sometimes not fast enough in stressful situations. Don't try to force feed these trees, only keep them babied with water.
 
#9 ·
Someone may have said it already, but if your going to treat the wound trim the edges cleanly with a sterile sharp knife. That will heal much faster than a jagged would. Only cut as deep as the injury and remove any shredded or loose pieces. Anlged in a little.
 
#12 ·
Were they my trees, or if I was replacing them, I have something I would want to experiment with. Being these are likely too small to bridge graft this might be interesting to see how it works. Slippery elm bark (powder) is used in herbal and natural healing as a poultice and it absolutely speeds and improves healing on human wounds and cuts, by protecting and keeping the blood flow going through the wound. It leaves a minimal scar because it does not allow a large scab to form, and it improves the stitching together of tissue. It is made from the exact part of a tree that is damaged in these type injuries. The phloem or bast fibers. These are used to transport the carbs (I think it's the carbs) from the leaves back to the roots. When phloem is damaged, the roots suffer first, then later the above ground parts. I have a hunch, based on my own experience with slippery elm poultices, that it could very well keep fluids flowing while the tree heals itself. It stays hydrated and mucilagenous for a long time and allows wicking of fluids. I might also wrap the poultice with burlap and keep it wet each day during the experiment.

I find there are a great many similarities between plant and animals when it comes to nutrition and healing. I think we can often times solve problems in one kingdom by looking at how solutions might be applied in the other. Example: cucumbers are high in silicon. Knowing that cuc's heal their own wounds with a silicon plug excreted from the wound (mice nibbling or splitting from excess hydraulic pressure within the plant) one might conclude that it can be used to heal bodily wounds. I have a friend that uses slices to close and heal psoriases patches. I know the silicon content is good for our hair skin nails, just as it gives strength to flower/plant stems.
 
#17 ·
Wow, several suggestions for round up and none for mulch??? A nice circle of mulch looks nicer to me than a ring of dead grass...
It does if the customer is willing to pay for it but it sounds like this customer plopped a tree in the middle of a lawn with no intention of making a tree ring for it. Nothing wrong with a little ring of dead grass around a tree IMHO, not the way I would like to see it in my own lawn but acceptable on a customers lawn...especially if they are cheap.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#18 ·
What cases would those be?
What kind of paint would you use? Latex, Acrylic or oil based. Do they come in designer colors?
I read an article from the texas forest service that suggested painting over new cuts there because the beetles that carry the tree wilt search for open tree wounds. They only suggested large cuts. I guess the tree wilt is very aggressive and can affect the tree very quickly so they said that it would be ok for that instance. I've always heard that it didn't make a difference and was a waste of time otherwise.
 
#19 ·
I read an article from the texas forest service that suggested painting over new cuts there because the beetles that carry the tree wilt search for open tree wounds. They only suggested large cuts. I guess the tree wilt is very aggressive and can affect the tree very quickly so they said that it would be ok for that instance. I've always heard that it didn't make a difference and was a waste of time otherwise.
You mean oak wilt disease? Yes, there are some recommendations to paint wounds if a tree is wounded during the a very specific time of year (roughly mid April - Early July) in the hope it will keep sap feeding beetles from spreading the disease.

Solution .... don't prune Oaks during the time of year where risk of infection is highest.

Please note the results of the following study.

http://joa.isa-arbor.com/request.asp?JournalID=1&ArticleID=2986&Type=2

Ceratocystis fagacearum causes the destructive tree disease called oak wilt. One means of pathogen spread is by
insect vectors (Nitidulidae) that transmit spores into fresh wounds on healthy trees. Experiments were conducted in central
Texas on native live oaks (Quercus fusiformis) to test pruning methods and paints on disease development. Three treatment
combinations were tested on 30 trees (10 trees/treatment): flush cut unpainted, flush cut painted, and unpainted pruning cuts
made according to the Shigo method. Unpainted puncture wounds were made on the lower trunks of an additional 20 trees
as controls. C. fagacearum spores were applied to the pruning cuts and half of the puncture wounds (positive controls) after
treatment, whereas the other half of the punctures received distilled water as negative controls. Oak wilt symptoms first
appeared in the flush cut unpainted treatment 31 days after inoculation. Infection rates, in decreasing order, were; positive
control (70%), flush cut unpainted (60%), Shigo pruning method (40%), flush cut painted (20%), and negative control
(10%). Pruning wounds, regardless of method, were effective infection courts for the oak wilt pathogen. Fewer trees became
infected when pruning cuts were painted, but differences among infection rates for pruning cuts were not statistically
significant.
Tree diameters and stem aspect ratio had no bearing on infection rates. The Shigo method is recognized as a
superior method for pruning, but there is no reason to change current recommendations to paint fresh wounds on susceptible
oaks in high-hazard oak wilt areas.

Comments?
 
#21 ·
You mean oak wilt disease? Yes, there are some recommendations to paint wounds if a tree is wounded during the a very specific time of year (roughly mid April - Early July) in the hope it will keep sap feeding beetles from spreading the disease.

Solution .... don't prune Oaks during the time of year where risk of infection is highest. There are many times you don't have the choice when to prune. I'm not advocating painting tree cuts, i'm just offering some info. where i heard it was used for beneficial purposes.

Please note the results of the following study.

http://joa.isa-arbor.com/request.asp?JournalID=1&ArticleID=2986&Type=2

Ceratocystis fagacearum causes the destructive tree disease called oak wilt. One means of pathogen spread is by
insect vectors (Nitidulidae) that transmit spores into fresh wounds on healthy trees. Experiments were conducted in central
Texas on native live oaks (Quercus fusiformis) to test pruning methods and paints on disease development. Three treatment
combinations were tested on 30 trees (10 trees/treatment): flush cut unpainted, flush cut painted, and unpainted pruning cuts
made according to the Shigo method. Unpainted puncture wounds were made on the lower trunks of an additional 20 trees
as controls. C. fagacearum spores were applied to the pruning cuts and half of the puncture wounds (positive controls) after
treatment, whereas the other half of the punctures received distilled water as negative controls. Oak wilt symptoms first
appeared in the flush cut unpainted treatment 31 days after inoculation. Infection rates, in decreasing order, were; positive
control (70%), flush cut unpainted (60%), Shigo pruning method (40%), flush cut painted (20%), and negative control
(10%). Pruning wounds, regardless of method, were effective infection courts for the oak wilt pathogen. Fewer trees became
infected when pruning cuts were painted, but differences among infection rates for pruning cuts were not statistically
significant.
Tree diameters and stem aspect ratio had no bearing on infection rates. The Shigo method is recognized as a
superior method for pruning, but there is no reason to change current recommendations to paint fresh wounds on susceptible
oaks in high-hazard oak wilt areas.

Comments?
:laugh:Good post but here's a couple questions you might recognize.
When was the test conducted? What were the weather conditions? What size and how old were the trees? What were the growing mediums that the specimans were located in? What were the ph's of the soils there?:laugh::laugh::laugh:
Just kidding...it's obvious when someone or some company in the northeast doesn't know what they are doing when cutting a tree...just look for the paint!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top