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stories and information about trees, and some side topics...
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Sunday, October 30, 2011 - Snow Damaged Trees
The snow is melting and the
tree branches are springing back up. Tomorrow we’ll mostly be cleaning
up the debris from the broken trees. After that , we can inspect the
damaged trees and make the right pruning cuts where branches are broken.
I’ll be able to fix a lot of the bent
arbs etc by bending
them and reducing co-dominants. And I
can talk to you about phasing in a new tree to replace that beat-up
Bradford pear.
More stuff on how to deal with snow damaged trees at Snow Damaged Trees
October 5, 2011 - European Hornets (Followup)
Renee wanted me to help her get rid of the
hornets. So
I had to decide how to go about it.
The most effective way to control
European hornets would be to destroy their nest and colony.
But we have no idea where the nest is
– probably not even on her property.
If we went to spray the hornets we see
on the trees with an ordinary contact insecticide we’d just kill those
individuals present at the time.
So I opted to coat the bark of the trees with
a material called dinotefuran.
It’s a neonicotinoid, like Merit, with
which you may be familiar.
But it’s much more soluble, so when
applied to the bark of a tree it can be absorbed, and then conducted
through the tree’s phloem.
And the phloem of the birch branches
is where these hornets are feeding.
I made a visit to Renee’s today to check the
results.
There were no longer any hornets on
the tree.
But there were MANY on the ground, all
either dead or dying.
So I
think we made a good choice.
Though we did have to intervene with a
pesticide, the one we used – dinotefuran – is unlikely to cause harm
other than to the target pest.
It is extremely low in toxicity to
humans.
And with the trunk application method,
the material all goes where we want it – in the tree.
The only exposure is to whatever eats
the tree.
And, being so highly soluble, it dies
not last very long (like Merit does).
So it won’t be affecting beneficial
insects like bees next year, after its job is done.
Post Script: I found a really good article
since I had this experience.
It’s by Frank Santamair, in the
Journal of Arboriculture from 1984.
September 29, 2011 - European Hornets
These are European
hornets.
I never really thought of them as tree pests before. When I see them
on trees, usually they’re feeding on sugar that’s been excreted by
aphids or scale insects, or on the alcoholic wetwood flux oozing from a
mulberry or a dying elm. But I may be changing my mind a little bit ,
after what I saw today. Renee, from Audubon, showed me these insects,
which she had attempted to identify by searching on the internet. She
had noticed them before, but could no longer tolerate them because her
son was stung by one of them, and it was a pretty bad experience.
They were congregating on two of her river
birches. I waved my hand a few inches from a group of them and they
didn’t react at all. They really aren’t very aggressive, normally.The
branch of the birch tree was stained with sooty mold, indicating sugar,
such as from an insect injury.
On closer inspection, I could see that the hornets were not feeding on
the sugar; they were actually causing the injury that produced it. These
hornets had chewed away the bark all the way around one branch, killing
it!
I know they need cellulose to make the paper to construct their
nests, but this is the first time I’ve seen this type of damage. You
learn something new everyday!
One more interesting observation: while I was trying to get a
photograph, I watched a baldfaced hornet approach a group of the
European hornets. The Europeans
reacted immediately and chased it away. After that, their behavior was
completely changed- they were very aggressive toward ME and
would no longer let me get close!
(check
back later to see what we did about it)
August 11, 2011 - Diagnosis: Probably herbicide injury (second time this week) This time: IMPRELIS!
Mrs. B from Royersford
called
yesterday concerned about her douglasfir trees. She told me one was
turning brown at the top, and also the white spruces didn’t look so
good. She reminded me that I had sprayed them to control a disease
problem a few years ago and was wondering if maybe they had the same
problem again or maybe bagworms or something. As soon as I saw them I
knew that it was neither of those problems. I explained to her that
similar symptoms on different species
most likely indicated an abiotic
problem, not a disease or a pest, which are usually host- specific.
The way the
young growth of the doug firs was
wilted and killed made me think of herbicide poisoning.
In fact, it looked exactly like the
symptoms of poisoning from Imprelis, Dupont’s new turf weedkiller.
Douglas fir - Imprelis injury
White spruce - Imprelis injury
Douglas fir - Imprelis injury
Douglas fir - Imprelis injury
The story of Imprelis is
a really interesting one, and it is soon going to be big news. Heres the
condensed version.
Last year Dupont introduced this
completely new product with great expectations for its potential. It is
extremely low in toxicity to humans and at the same time very effective
at controlling broadleaf weeds.
So
it was immediately popular. But this spring, all over the country cases
of dying
evergreen trees were being reported,
mostly white pines and Norway spruce. And it wasn’t long before it
became evident that there was a
connection between
these injured trees and Imprelis
herbicide . The thing that these mysterious cases all had in common was
the turf around them had been treated with Imprelis. Dupont initially
did not
acknowledge responsibility, but just
last week they pulled Imprelis from the market. I’ll try to get some of
the news articles and Dupont’s statements up here soon.
Anyway back to Mrs. B’s
trees. I told her my suspicion. She said “but I have a lawn company that
just uses organic treatments.” I responded;
“maybe so, but there are NO weeds in
your lawn. There is no organic weed control that is truly that
effective.” I suggested she call the lawn company and ask them what
chemicals had been applied. And told her to google “Imprelis.”
Then I left to go visit
another client. Before I even got to Limerick, Mrs. B called me to tell
me what happened. She
had called the lawn company as soon as
I left, and they were completely upfront with her. They acknowledged
that they had applied Imprelis on June 13. And they now know there is a
big problem., and want her continued feedback.
August 8, 2011 - Diagnosis: Probably herbicide injury
On Monday I checked on an ash tree for a client in East Greenville.
She said the leaves appeared to be wilting.
The ash tree
Well, they didn't really
look wilted to me, but they were distorted and curled.
The curled leaves
I unrolled some of
them to check for pests; none were there. No aphids, no silk from
any caterpillars. There was an outdoor fireplace nearby. But
if that were the cause, I would expect the symptoms to be the worst
closest to where the fire would have been.
Next to the ash is a
young saucer magnolia. Last year I treated it for a bad magnolia
scale infestation; so while I was there, I examined it. The scale
was gone, but it too had a lot of distorted leaves. And, like the
ash, no pests, no aphids.
The magnolia
When trees of different
species have the same symptoms, it's probably abiotic - not a disease or
a pest. Pests and diseases are usually host-specific.
Near
the ash and magnolia is a Kousa dogwood. Same thing - distorted
leaves. And the type of distortion that is generally seen with
certain herbicide poisoning. That is, elongated parallel veins and
interveinal chlerosis.
The Kousa dogwood
There is another ash
a few hundred feet away also at the rear of the backyard. It has
the same symptoms, only even more pronounced.
The other ash
Well, all the symptoms
are consistent with the effect of herbicides, but the client's lawn is
definitely not weed free. If that is the cause, the likely reason
is spray drift from the hay field adjacent to the yard. The field
looks very clean, hardly any weeds.
The hay field
So that is my theory -
all the trees were damaged by herbicide drift from the application to
the hay field. And that is what I told the client. And she
confirmed that the field was recently sprayed. She will ask the
farmer to be more careful in the future.
July 27, 2011 - Emerald ash borer update
Have you noticed all those purple sticky traps?
The PA Department of Agriculture has hung them in ash trees all over
eastern PA this summer. My guess is we're going to find out about
a considerable range increase for this terribly destructive insect.
Already this year, 2 new counties have been added to the list,
Huntingdon and Wyoming. IT IS NOW IN THE EASTERN PART OF PA,
having been detected just north of Wilkes-Barre.
Things you need to know:
-
Adults can fly on their own approx. 1/2 mile. So the pest isn't
moving very fast on its own.
- It gets help in colonizing
territory from people moving infested firewood.
- If emerald
ash borer gets close to your area, your landscape trees can be treated
by soil injections. Bigger trees can only, so
far,
be successfully treated by trunk injection of insecticides.
Treatments need to be done annually to be effective.
- Experts
do not suggest treating trees unless an infestation has been detected
within 15 miles. To treat before the threat is
there is a waste of money. And trunk injection is an invasive
procedure. Don't injure the tree with it until you need to.
And
don't believe anyone who tells you that their trunk
injection method causes no injury to the tree.
- If your trees
are monitored by a competent arborist, you are not likely to be caught
by surprise by emerald ash borer. If it
shows up,
you will have time to control it if you choose to.
-
NEW information: A new chemical is available that is highly
effective and lasts more than one season. Hopefully it will be
legally registered for emerald ash borer control in Pennsylvania soon.
And hopefully the price will come down (it's very
expensive).
- MORE NEW information: A new
monitoring tool may soon become available. Recent research on
developing a sex
attractant (pheromone) has been
promising. The purple monitoring traps now use two aromatic tree
oils as attractant.
- Still more new information:
Research has also uncovered promising indications of natural biological
control of emerald
ash borer.
We in southeast PA
are lucky to have the benefit of a decade of other's experience and
research before having to face the emerald ash borer.
June 20, 2011 - Interesting removal job
Beech tree is surrounded by house.
Album has lots of pictures. If you look through them quickly it
looks cool!
June 16, 2011 - Unfairly maligned part II
The Northern catalpa. Some people HATE this tree. It has big
leaves and seeds to rake up. I don't see the problem though.
The seed pods are light and dry when they fall and disappear when the
lawnmower goes over them.
Mr. Dirr says: "Limited value in the
residential landscape because of coarsness; has a place in difficult
areas but the use of this and the following species (he names the other
catalpas) should be tempered."
Mine is right in front of my house
and provides wonderful shade. And when it blooms in late spring,
it is a sight to behold!
June 1, 2011 - Underappreciated/Unfairly Maligned
I don't always agree with "the experts." Michael Dirr is a famous
expert. His book Manual of Woody Plants has been the main
textbook for courses on the subject. Here's what Michael Dirr says
about one of my favorite shrubs:
"Old favorite for
sweetly-scented flowers; does not have much to recommend it for the
modern landscape"
"All Philadelphus types require about the
same care - none. They are vigorous, easy to grow plants but are
strictly of single season quality. In flower they are attractive
to some but the rest of the year (about 50 weeks) are real eyesores.
My garden space and labor are too valuable to waste on shrubs which only
return a small interest. Consider these factors before extensively
planting shrubs of this type."
Well, he does admit in the introduction to the book that he is
opinionated. With no apologies. I respect that. But I
still think he's a plant snob. I would grow mockorange for its
perfume alone, even if it only flowered for one day! It fills the
hollow where I live with a heavenly and unique scent. If only
Estee Lauder could pick up on it!
And so what if it's only a
green bush the rest of the year? What about privet? Taxus?
Juniper? Oh yeah, you can hack them into garish topiaries, I
forgot.
My mockorange is a remnant of a very old landscape,
dating to a time before plant snobs were so prevalent.
My next
wrongly snubbed favorite will bloom tomorrow or the next day.
May 18, 2011 - What a good quality nursery tree looks like
Look at the trunk flare on this nice rivers purple beech we planted this
morning. See how the roots are evenly spaced around the trunk, and
they all grow outward? And the flare is ABOVE GROUND! This
is how it's supposed to be! I got this tree at Watercrest Farm in
West Grove, PA. It was worth the drive. Unfortunately, it's
not always easy to find really nice quality trees like this.
This
beech is the replacement for one that died. When we pulled the
dead one out, it was obvious why it didn't survive:
It has a TERRIBLE root system. Whoever planted it in the nursery
didn't bother to spread the roots out. See how they're all tangled
and wrapped in a circle, and all aimed in one direction?
It's nice to know that good quality trees are available if you
look hard enough.
May 18, 2011 - Ash trees doing this?
Don't panic. See
5/23/09 article
May 15, 2011 - Nursery trees: why tall + skinny = low quality
Last winter I started a little landscape renovation project at my house.
This patch of woods along my driveway wasn't that pretty. There
were a lot of invasive foreign plants like Norway maples, bush
honeysuckle and multiflora rose, and many of the trees were mutilated by
the power company because of the overhead wires. So I cleared away
a lot of that stuff, and just left some of the nice understory trees
like the dogwoods, blackhaw, and hophornbeam. I've replanted with
wildflowers and intend to add some nice native shrubs. It looks
nicer already, and now you can see the creek.
Some of the little
hophornbeam trees that I left are tall and skinny because they've been
in competition with the adjacent trees their whole lives. Today, I
noticed that after last night's rain, this tree is bent over.
That's because when trees are crowded they can't sway in the wind.
That movement is what causes a tree to develop a strong, tapered trunk.
Strong lignin bonds develop in the tree's xylem as a reaction to
bending.
When you buy trees in a nursery, the size of the tree is
measured by caliper (except smaller trees). Caliper is the trunk
diameter at a half a foot above ground. If you have the choice
between a taller or shorter tree of the same caliper at the same price,
you want to pick the shorter one. Its more tapered trunk will be
stronger than the other tree's.
This is also why we try to avoid
staking newly planted trees. If they must be staked we do it in
such a way that the trunk can still bend in the wind.
April 28, 2011: Penn-Del Arbor Day-of-Service 2011 at Friends Hospital
Tomorrow is National Arbor Day (Friday). We celebrated it a few days
early, at Friends Hospital in Northeast Philly. That’s where we got
together with other Penn-Del ISA companies to help restore a magnificent
but neglected landscape through donated tree maintenance work.
Aerial photos of Friends Hospital. This is the
first time we’ve gone to the same location in consecutive years, and I’m
happy that we did- I believe we have helped them catch up to the point
that they can maintain these grounds so the public can truly appreciate
what is there.
Arbor Day
2010
Arbor Day 2009
Some photos of what we did:
This weeping European beech
had lots of dead wood and was overgrown with vines.
Scott gives Dave a tree biology lesson before the pruning starts. He’s
explaining why the sprouts that are growing from the roots are
genetically different from the rest of the tree, by pointing out where
the tree was grafted
(see the non-weeping rootsprout behind Scott, on the left?)
We had the pleasure of meeting Paul Freda, a self-employed arborist from
Pottstown. He and Ricky worked together pruning the beech.
Paul is a great climber an very knowledgeable ( he taught us about the
amur corktree adjacent to where we were working). I hope sometime we get
to work together in “real life!”
Done
Scott got the worst of the dead wood out of this red maple (for
the second year in a row!) This tree is in it’s final years, it’s doomed
because of girdling roots.
Then we moved on to this red maple. Here Scott is setting his climbing
line from the ground, while Paul works his way up the tree setting the
line as he goes – the old fashioned way. Fun for me to watch- reminds me
of “the day.”
Yes, Scott made it up there, too!
A
final little detail- a round ended bark tracing on a nasty storm-damaged
wound
April 25, 2011 - Girdling root job
The client has 3 cherry trees in his front yard, and he wondered why
they were not growing at the same rate. He also noticed wounds on
the trees that were not closing.
The wounds turned out to be nectria
cankers (a fungus disease). The trees varied a lot in size, even
though the same age. All three trees had soil piled against the
trunk and no visible trunk flare. I couldn't pull the soil away
because ornamental grass was planted in it.
There were no other
obvious health problems above ground, so I suggested we blow away the
soil from the base of the trunks and look for root system problems.
Today the crew went to the property and did just that. Using the
airspade, they blew away the soil mounds and found roots encircling all
the trunks. This is surely the limiting factor for growth, and the
stress from the trees' reduced ability to conduct water and sugar
reduces their ability to resist the nectria infection.
Ricky called
me to ask my advice about cutting the girdling roots. What needed
to be done was really radical surgery, and he was a little timid about
it. After all, we want to "first do no harm." So he sent me
photos from his smart phone and I looked at them on my computer. I
reassured him that it was ok to cut the big roots. Although the
surgery would seem radical, there is no way the trees could live to be
old without it.
By the way - the big girdling roots in the perfect
circle are probably the result of the tree having been raised in a pot.
Update: Additional photos the crew sent me -
April 10, 2011 - Field Trip to Longwood Gardens
I needed to show a client some examples of
how an old and fragile tree can be supported by props. So I used
that as an excuse to take Jodie and go on a little excursion to Longwood
Gardens. (Note to the IRS: that's why the company paid for our trip.)
Longwood has 2 nice examples of this kind of
support system. One is this big cedar that has a threatening lean.
The other is this old decrepit mulberry. It looks like it
should be cut down, doesn't it? But Longwood keeps it alive
because it is the record holder for largest mulberry in Pennsylvania.
Sometimes there is a reason to make "heroic" efforts to preserve a
"veteran" tree.
The props are made out of decay-resistant black locust logs that
were cut somewhere on Longwood grounds. Pretty cool, huh?
With
that mission (getting those photos) accomplished, we spent the rest of
the day enjoying Longwood's many indoor and outdoor exhibits. I'll
share a few things I found interesting.
Some of the lawns are
meticulously maintained, like a golf course. But not all. I
especially like the areas that are filled with spring-blooming flowers,
like here.
Inside one othe the greenhouses, Jodie pointed out a plant that caught
her eye (I forget what it was). I looked at it and said I didn't
think it was pretty. It had pale colored leaves. My sense of
beauty appreciates dark green colored plants - I guess because I'm
looking through arborist eyes. Green = chlorophyll = energy =
healthy.
Right after we stepped out of that building, I said "Look!
That's what I like. Look how dark green that tree is!"
Lastly, I shot a few pictures to show how Longwood mulches around their
trees. This is the right way to do it!
Note: No trenches around the perimeter, you can always see the trunk
flares, they cover a lot of square feet, and the material is: partly
composted wood chips!
March 20, 2011 - Announcing the first JTS photo contest
Valuable Prizes!
About the
Contest: The idea here is to raise the level of public tree
awareness. I picked the volcano topic because it's the biggest, nastiest
tree problem out there. Mulch volcanoes are a bigger threat to the trees
of suburbia than any insect, even the dreaded emerald ash borer!
All
are welcome to enter, whether you are an ordinary citizen with just the
slightest interest in trees, or a green industry professional. You don't
need to be a skilled photographer either. We're going to judge these
photos on lots of different criteria. Photographic composition might be
one of them. "Artiness." But also anything that makes the photo
interesting. Maybe the perps caught in the act. Maybe the root injuries
or girdling roots depicted. Maybe something about the location, that
it's somewhere that you'd think they'd know better. Maybe just the sheer
outrageousness of the volcanic mass. Some little detail that makes it
humorous. Be creative...
If you are a serious gardener or plant
person, you know about the mulch volcano problem. If you don't know,
Google it. And marvel at the number of hits! And then read the articles
I've posted on this site.
Mulch Madness I
Mulch Madness II
Stay tuned
for more details. I'll have a page for the contest within the next few
days. And start carrying your camera in your car. There are so many
photo opportunities out there!
The biggest problem is deciding whose advice to take. There is a lot conflicting information out there.
January 27, 2011 - Snow damaged trees - what to do?
Basically, some sources will tell you to knock the snow off with a broom
to prevent more damage. Others will say NOT to do that because you
risk causing more damage.
The truth is: once the snow is over, the damage is done. You can't
undo it, but you can indeed make it worse of you aren't careful.
Usually - except in cases where big branches are actually broken - the
damage is not nearly as bad as it looks. If you can just be
patient and wait until the snow or ice melts naturally, you are likely
to be AMAZED at how well the branches eventually recover their
positions. After that, you will also be amazed at how I can
restore the tree with a few expertly administered pruning cuts.
Go to
Feb. 14, 2010 for a really
powerful story on this topic.
January 7, 2011 - Before and after: A couple of December’s pruning jobs
Mr. B told me he had concerns about his big silver maple.
It had a big leader that grew toward his house, and another over the
neighbor’s yard. He wondered if we could make it less threatening. He
even asked if I’d suggest topping it.
I went to see the tree, and his neighborhood was marred with many
examples of bad pruning, like this “topped” silver maple a few houses
away.
Maybe that’s where he got the “topping” idea. Anyway, I explained
to him why topping would be counterproductive to his goal of keeping the
tree safe and healthy. (see
April 2, 2010 if you want to
read more about THAT). Then I described how I could reduce those leaders
by 25% without making any heading (topping) (internodal) cuts. Mr. B
liked that suggestion, so that is what we did.
Here’s the tree when we were setting up the climbing ropes:
Before pruning After pruning
We pruned a LOT of wood from this tree – those leaders were reduced by
at least ¼. But the type of pruning wounds we made are not
significant injuries. The tree will compartmentalize them way better
than if they’d been heading cuts. And there are plenty of auxin (plant
hormone) producing tips left in place to inhibit excessive re-sprouting.
Elaine, from Oaks, called me the week before Christmas to ask if I could
prune her two cryptomeria (Japanese cedar) trees.
Both trees, and an arborvita, were very close to the house, with
branches rubbing on the roof and gutters. Nice old house.
Nice old trees. Although the both cryptomeria had a lot of dead
branches, possibly an indication of past health struggles, they were in
stable condition and did not seem to be facing imminent decline.
And they add a lot to the curb appeal of the house (in my tree-biased
opinion!)
We pruned them away from the roof, cleared out the dead wood, and gave
them a good inspection to make sure they were not hosting and Japanese
cedar longhorn beetles, ANOTHER imported pest new to our area.
(They were clean of pests – just a few sapsucker holes near the top).
A beautiful clear-blue December sky helped me get these nice
before-and-after photos of the pruning job!
January 5, 2011 - A Case of Attempted Arboricide?
Back in October, we were at a client’s property in Oaks, PA to do some
tree pruning when I noticed something odd.
A surface root from one of her trees had been chopped at with an axe
where it grew onto the neighbor’s property. Nothing unusual there,
I’m used to seeing roots cut by people who object to their presence on
the lawn surface. But there were several little white balls lying
on and around the cut root. What were they? They looked like
moth balls. I picked one up and smelled it. Chlorine.
Someone had spilled a little pile of pool chemical tablets. Then I
noticed something else: two pieces of copper tubing had been
hammered into the root. THAT wasn’t an accident.
The chopped root
I’ve often heard people recite the old wives tale that if you want to
kill a tree, drive copper nails into it. (Copper sulfate DOES have
herbicidal properties, but this trick will not work). So, what’s
going on here? Axe cuts, pool chemicals, copper – sure looks like
someone doesn’t like this tree!
Looking at the tree itself, the leaves on the side closest to the
neighbor were curled at the edges, dry and scorched looking.
Scorched foliage
I don’t think it’s at all unlikely that the pool chemicals could be
responsible for this leaf scorch, especially if it is one of the many
formulations that contain an algaecide.
I shared my suspicions with the client. She is brand new in the
neighborhood, and hasn’t even met the neighbor yet. I suggested
that she let us prune the maximum practical amount where the tree’s
branches hung near the neighbor’s pool. Better not to give him
reason to complain. And it seems nobody likes trees too close to a
pool.
Of course, I can’t prove the neighbor intentionally tried to poison the
tree. But later in the day while the climbers were in the tree
pruning it, they were discussing the symptoms they were seeing.
Unknown to them, the neighbor had walked over and was listening in on
their conversation. Overhearing them speculate on the likelihood
of cause and effect, he announced his presence by yelling “Yeah, yeah
buddy, whatever you say.” And then, in a very hostile tone, he
denied involvement and rambled on until the men became quite tired of
listening.
If indeed this was an intentional tree poisoning, it’s not the
first one I’ve seen. Probably the most scary was a few years ago,
in Worcester. My client suspected his neighbor of sneaking onto his
property and drilling large holes in the tree trunks and dosing them
with Roundup herbicide. (Lab tests confirmed the herbicide).
Not everybody is a tree lover.
Back to the story – the client in Oaks knows to be vigilant. And
the neighbor knows he’s a suspect. I sure hope they end up getting
to know one another and become friends!
Click here
to read another tree poisoning story, this one in Seattle, Washington.
November 17, 2010 - Needle loss, color change, on evergreen trees
As usually happens in the fall, I’ve been getting calls from people
concerned about the yellowing or dropping of needles from their
evergreen trees (another call this morning).
In most cases this is
normal – the older needles drop off in fall. The tree doesn’t need that
full canopy for photosynthesis in the winter, and the reduction in
surface area could benefit the tree by decreasing water loss and
lessening potential for storm damage.
It seems like the phenomenon is
more apparent than usual this year; Penn State has been getting a lot of
calls too. Here’s the news alert they recently sent out:
My evergreen is turning brown!
But there ARE some needle diseases that might deserve a closer look. In
particular, I’m going to re-examine some of the Colorado blue spruces
I’ve seen this fall to make sure that they’re not infected with Weirii
rust. That’s a new disease in our area, and it has the potential to be
more problematic than some of the other fungus diseases because it
doesn’t require an alternate host species for reproduction. It’s hard to
identify now, but in the spring, the “rusty” looking spores will give it
away! (I’ll show you some pictures tomorrow)
November 16, 2010 - New accreditation
October 3, 2010 - Bacterial Leaf Scorch Update – Real Cases
You do not necessarily need to cut down your oak tree if you find out
that it has bacterial leaf scorch. Yes, BLS is incurable. But hey
– so is diabetes. If you find out you have diabetes are you going
to go right to Dr. Kevorkian? Of course not! Your doctor is going
to tell you how to manage the disease. And if you follow his
advice you probably have a lot of good years left!
Here are some trees I’ve been watching for a while. All the photos were
taken late in the growing season when the symptoms look the worst.
Red
oak, Paoli, tested positive 2007 and below Photo, Sept. 2010
This tree has some problems besides the BLS – old root and other
injuries. But the owner wants to keep it as long as possible.
It is not declining quickly.
Row of red oaks, Valley Forge, photo Oct. 2010
These trees are healthy. Do you see the gap in the treeline where
the man is standing? There was another oak tree there until 3
years ago. It tested positive for BLS in 1992. Before that,
it was injured when the adjacent driveway was bulldozed. Its
health never recovered. It stood diseased and declining for many
years. The trees right next to it were never affected although the
spittlebugs and leafhoppers that can transmit the disease were surely
present.
Pin
oak, Collegeville, photo Oct. 2010
This pin oak tested positive for BLS in 2003. At that time, it was
treated by trunk injection and prescription fertilizing to treat
chlorosis (chlorophyll deficiency) NO antibiotics. It looks like
it is due for treatment again – see the yellow leaves? But it’s
hanging in there, not declining, no tip dieback.
Pin oak near Norristown, Oct. 2010
This tree tested positive for BLS in 1997. It was treated with
antibiotics and prescription fertilizer. It had significant
decline symptoms at that time, including tip dieback. It has not
been treated since, except for routine crown cleaning pruning. It
looks better than it did 13 years ago. The owner is glad she kept
it.
Pin
oak in Royersford
This tree tested positive for BLS just last year. The tree is
full of sprouts because of bad pruning. It is chlorotic because of
soil chemistry. This summer when the scorch symptoms appeared
again the owner decided to invest in the treatments I suggested could
improve its health. We mulched as much of the root zone as he was
willing to sacrifice from lawn area, to help preserve soil moisture.
This fall we will treat the soil with a prescription fertilizer
treatment as per Penn State soil test results, along with a
biostimulant. Next spring I’ll evaluate leaf color and, perhaps,
inject with micronutrient (iron) to treat chlorosis. I will keep
you posted next year with results!
What will happen to our oak trees in the future as a result of this
disease? Nobody really knows. Here are some of the
possibilities:
-
Some predict doom and gloom – a big percentage of red oak group
trees will be killed. Maybe, but I doubt it. Remember that when
you read a statement in a news article that says something like “90%
of the trees tested in New Jersey have bacterial leaf scorch” that’s
just the trees that are tested. Nobody is testing trees that look
healthy.
-
My guess is that we may find that the probability of infection is
going to depend more on the individual tree’s genetics and health
than just exposure to the bacterium.
-
Severity will probably vary from year to year. Cold winters seem to
suppress the disease. Drought weakens the trees.
-
The oxytetracycline treatments used by some people really don’t seem
to work.They definitely don’t cure the disease. But that doesn’t
mean a better treatment won’t be discovered. After all, Xylella
fastidiosa is what causes Pierce’s disease in grapes. It’s the same
bacteria, though not genetically identical. Xf is a big problem
for the grape industry. And there is a lot more money for grape
research than for shade trees.
-
I also predict that in many cases bacterial leaf scorch might end up
being similar to a lot of other leaf diseases. Like anthracnose of
ash, sycamore and walnut, horsechestnut leaf blotch, scab of apples
– more of a nuisance than a killer, especially if overall tree
health can be maintained.
We will learn more as the years pass. I will watch these and other
cases, and keep you posted on them as well as on new developments.
GO TO MAIN ARTICLE
on Bacterial Leaf Scorch
October 1, 2010 - Bacterial leaf scorch is being exploited by
opportunists. These two people avoided becoming victims.
Mrs. H and Mr. M from yesterday’s story have something else in common
besides being surprised to find out the trees at their new houses had
problems. Both Mrs. H’s red oak and Mr. Ms pin oak have foliage
that shows scorch symptoms. Both could possibly be infected with
bacterial leaf scorch (B.L.S.) (Xylella).
I think the causes of the bad appearance of the leaves on Mr. M’s tree
are primarily abiotic – caused by environmental conditions rather than
disease. Mrs. H’s looks like bacterial leaf scorch. But
there is no way to tell for sure without a lab test. Bacterial
leaf scorch can’t be cured. But BLS alone does not normally kill
trees, at least not quickly. We’ve only been able to reliably
diagnose bacterial leaf scorch for about the last 20 years, and we still
have more questions than answers about it.
But it’s been in the news a lot lately, and the news sensationalization
of it has helped fuel a minor epidemic of fear.
Both Mrs. H and Mr. M solicited the help of other tree service
companies besides mine. Interestingly, both told me similar
stories about their experiences. Each was advised by at least one
company that their trees were diseased and should be immediately
removed. And each had a company advise them to inject antibiotics
into their diseased trees. None of these companies suggested
testing to find out if the trees actually had bacterial leaf scorch!
YOU CANNOT, WITH CERTAINTY, DIAGNOSE BACTERIAL LEAF SCORCH WITHOUT A LAB
TEST!
I have a hunch that the companies that suggested removing the trees
make a lot of their profit by removing trees. And the ones who
offer to inject them with antibiotics when they are symptomatic at the
end of the growing season make a lot of their profit by selling snake
oil pills. Neither of these suggested actions is in the best
interest of the trees or their owners.
LEARN MORE ABOUT BACTERIAL LEAF SCORCH at
September 18, 2009.
Tomorrow I’ll share some case studies that will support my opinion that
bacterial leaf scorch is not a death sentence. I have been
watching some cases for close to 20 years!
September 30, 2010 - Buying a house with trees? Learn
from these folks experiences!
On Tuesday night I talked on the phone with a potential
customer in Worcester whose trees I had just looked at. One big
pin oak was dead, another had health problems. Mr. M told me he
had just bought the house last winter. The trees were a selling
point – one of the reasons he chose the house. He didn’t notice
any problems because it was winter and the leaves were off.
Pin oak in foreground has
been dead for over a year. The one behind it is chlorotic and has
sparse foliage, and had a trench dug through the root zone 3 years ago.
Then, the next morning I went to Wayne to see Mrs. H’s
red oak. She too had recently bought her house. Her tree
even came with a built-in tree house, which she thinks is very cool, and
is using! (it IS cool, I went up in it when I checked out the
tree). Same disappointment as Mr. M’s, however. She didn’t
notice health problems with the tree until she moved in.
The scorch and dead tips
weren’t obvious until summer.
The good news– I don’t think either Mr. M’s pin oak
(the live one, of course) or Mrs. H’s red oak are hopeless cases.
Their declining conditions may be reversible. But the surprise
could have been avoided. After all, when you buy a house you get
almost everything else inspected by professionals, why not the trees?
There’s more to this story –both of these people
avoided being victimized again- watch for the follow-up tomorrow
It was hard for me to build this website. I
procrastinated for years. I had too many ideas of articles to
write or tree topics. It would be a book… a novel…War and Peace
! Where do you start when you have War and Peace in your
head? Then I began to realize it wasn’t going to be War and
Peace. Not even a novel. If I could manage to do it at
all it would just be a textbook. Who reads a textbook?
So finally I got the bright idea that if I could just
start writing down some of the daily stories I’d eventually cover most
of the topics in an incremental sort of way. I have the rest of my
life to do it, after all.
Now the problem is – I know I have to keep stories
concise if anybody is going to get anything out of them. But it is
hard. If you know me you know how hard it is to get me to shut up
once I get going.
But I STILL want to share some of the stuff that
doesn’t fit. The overflow, the digressions and divergences.
The cool stuff that happens at work that falls slightly outside
arboriculture. Any maybe some stuff that might not “really
interest anybody outside of a small circle of friends.”
You’re welcome to join the “circle” – here’s how:
become
a fan of Jacobs Tree Surgery on
Facebook.
If you decide to check it out, I’ll tell you about the
Ukranian tomato.
August 12, 2010 - Is Tree Work Dangerous?
A good friend of mine, Shawn, who is a landscaper,
called a couple of weeks ago. He wanted me to go with him to look
at a tree that needed work, and so I did.
The tree was owned by the parents of an old friend of
Shawn’s, who now lives on the west coast. Shawn’s friend had
called him and asked him to get the tree work done for his parents, and
told him about The Accident. The tree, a white pine, had been
damaged (like so many in our area!) by that last big snowstorm last
winter. Several broken branches were still hung up in the tree
where, if they were dislodged, they might land in the street and hurt
someone. That, I guess, was probably why Shawn’s friend’s sister
wanted to help. Visiting her parents and seeing that they appeared
to be in no hurry to take care of the tree, she decided to do it
herself. She climbed the tree and a branch broke and she fell to
the ground. Her mother told me they all feel fortunate she will
walk again, but she is still recovering from a broken back, broken neck,
and broken ribs.
After the incident, I think everybody in the family was
anxious to get the job done, and done by a professional.
This is the tree:
We did the job for them today. It cost $312.00
So, is tree work dangerous?
My answer has always been NO, or at least there is no
reason it needs to be.
Often when we’re pruning or removing a big tall tree a
client will comment that the work looks dangerous, or “isn’t that
climber scared?” My stock answer is “the scariest thing we did
today was the drive to your house.” We had to share the road with
all those distracted or impatient or angry people who are late for work.
Once we’re on the job, we’re in control of the situation.
Everybody knows all the safety procedures, we work as a team, we have
good modern personal protective and fall safety equipment and know how
to use it. Nobody does work they are not trained for and skilled
at.
The chances of getting seriously hurt are pretty small
until the ride home!
But we don’t take safety for granted. We are
always learning from organized training programs. Everyone attends
formal training in first aid, aerial rescue and electrical hazards.
We go to seminars where we learn from others’
mistakes – accidents and near misses. We analyze the
potential hazards on all our job sites.
Years ago an insurance agent gave me his opinion why
workers comp rates were so high for the tree industry. He said something
like “you guys and painters- it’s not that your work’s so dangerous.
Just that you seem to hire an awfully lot of alcoholics and druggies.”
I can’t say there aren’t still some marginal characters lurking in a
few companies disgracing the lower echelon of tree “services”, but the
stereotype definitely does not accurately portray the whole tree care
industry!
Our trade organization- TCIA- Tree Care Industry
Association- continually works to improve safety in our workplace. They
publish lots of safety training programs and co-sponsor the ANSI Z133
safety standards for tree care.
And each month TCIA magazine prints a collection of
the latest accident stories gleaned from the news. Here’s this month’s:
You can see more in the archives:
TCIA.org
Each month as I read between the lines of these tragic
stories, my opinion is reinforced that serious accidents among trained
and skilled arborists are relatively rare. A disproportionate percentage
of these stories imply some indication that the victims were unqualified
to be doing the work that hurt them. So many casualties seem to involve
fly-by-night type companies or individuals, landscapers and others
doing work beyond their qualifications, and do-it yourselfers. IT
DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY!
June 24, 2010 - Bagworms and Bagworm Predators
This morning we did a pest monitoring visit for a good client, a 250unit
townhouse complex. Historically the worst pest here (invertebrate
that is) has been the bagworm, because of the preponderance of
arborvitae and juniper in the landscape.
A big problem with bagworms is that to the untrained
eye they are not easily seen, so they’re often not noticed until late
summer when they are no longer easy, or possible, to control, and the
tree has been killed or severely damaged.
But early instar (young) larvae are EASILY controlled,
you just need to know when and how to spot them.
Cocoon of early instar
larva. Can you see it? The caterpillar has camouflaged itself by
attaching juniper needles to the cocoon!
We examined all the important host plants today, and
only found one very small bagworm outbreak (thus the lousy photo-not a
lot of subjects from which to choose.)
But what we DID find was lots of assassin bugs!
That’s a good thing! They’re a predatory insect – one of the few
predators of bagworm.
Assassin Bugs
The bagworm larva’s cocoon protects it from most
predators, but the assassin bug can attack it successfully because it
has a long, pointy mouth part (rostrum) that it can insert right into
the cocoon
See the rostrum? It’s the reddish brown spike
curving down and rearward from the head
Anyway, the point of this story is that this clients
landscape has very few pest problems. And it is because they DON’T
use regularly scheduled pesticide cover sprays. When we encounter
a pest problem that reaches a threshold requiring an intervention we
just target the actual pest population, we don’t blast the whole
landscape with pesticides. And we use a control measure that can
do the job with the least impact on non-target species. Bagworm
can be easily controlled with Bt if caught in time. Bt only kills
Lepidoptera, no other insects
So natural predators control almost all the pests for
this client. The bagworms rarely get out of hand anymore.
There are never any mite problems on the spruces or arborvitae or
junipers. This job is really easy if you know what you’re doing
More insect eaters we saw today
Damsel fly
predator mite (eating an earwig)
Unfortunately a lot of companies still manage pests
with regular sprays, whether needed or not. This is stupid.
It’s like bombing the hell out of an entire country just to try to get
one terrorist bad guy when you don’t even know if he’s there or not!
It’s a huge waste of money and ammunition, there’s loads of unnecessary
collateral damage, and a lot of the casualties turn out to have been
your allies!
The lesson : diagnose before you treat.
(treatment without diagnosis is malpractice) Monitoring plants is
the first and most important step. It is the key element in an IPM
(integrated pest management) or PHC (plant health care) program.
On my travel route today: more lionstailed trees.
(See June 10). Again in Pottstown. Maybe Pottstown has an
epidemic. Or would that be called an infestation (2-legged pests)?
June 10, 2010 - Wonderful example of horrible pruning!
Sometimes in the course of my travels something
catches my eye and I am compelled to pull over and snap a picture.
This is one of those things.
Somebody stripped out all the inside branches of this
pin oak!
This is unfortunately a pretty common malpractice –
the ignorant tree pruner sometimes claims to the unsuspecting tree owner
that “thinning” the tree will let wind through and lessen the chance of
storm breakage, and they do THIS. But this is not thinning – the
name for it is LIONSTAILING. It doesn’t achieve the effect claimed
because all the leaf surface area is now at the end of the branch where
the wind force has the most leverage on the branch, instead of evenly
distributed as “nature intended” (as evolution perfected).
And then, all that light let in on the previously
shaded bark causes the tree to waste valuable stored energy putting out
sprouts, and it can’t make the needed amount of food (sugar) (energy)
because of the reduced amount of foliage. This could likely be the
beginning of the irreversible decline of the health of this mature tree.
What a shame.
Actual thinning is not harmful, it can be good.
It takes skill to get out to the ends of the branches where the thinning
cuts need to be. And if the cuts are made correctly, according to
ANSI standards and using the 3 to 1 rule, you probably won’t even notice
it was pruned if you are driving by.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - Arbor Day-of-Service
Today was Arbor Day for us! Not the official
arbor day – that’s not until Friday here in Pennsylvania. But it
is the day the Penn-Del Chapter of the International Society of
Arboriculture held their annual day-of-service Arbor Day celebration.
Each year several companies from our area get together and provide pro
bono tree care at the grounds of a worthy non-profit organization that
just is not able to budget for the tree maintenance work they really
need. This year’s recipient was Friends Hospital in Northeast
Philadelphia. A great time was had by all of us, many of whom
compete against each other in the tree care business every other day of
the year. But this day was different – there was great camaraderie
among us as we teamed up and worked on some really special and sometimes
historic trees for a good cause.
The Jacobs Tree Surgery crew pruned this
cedar-of-Lebanon. It was in bad shape from snow-storm damage
Mike Chenail, our Penn-Del Arbor Day committee
chairman, coils his climbing line after an aerial interview with KYW’s
Karin Phillips. Here’s a link to the
interview, if you click the audio
part on the right you’ll hear all the background banter.
The perfect day for cedar-apple rust
Every spring, the first time we get the right combination of temperature
and rain, the eastern red cedars “bloom” with the spore producing
structures of cedar-apple rust galls. YESTERDAY WAS THE DAY!
And this year, the phenomenon seems especially spectacular, with some
trees that look like they are completely covered with fluorescent orange
jelly. Not surprising, considering how the wet weather last summer
caused severe infestations of the disease on the alternate host, apple
trees, where the spores that infect the cedars originate.
More explanation of the disease and photos of the apple
trees can be found at
July 15, 2009 article.
Mulch Madness Part II
I saw this mulch prep job in progress during my travels
a couple of weeks ago. It shows how NOT to mulch so perfectly, I
could not resist sharing.
The landscapers have dug trenches around the trees and
piled the soil they dug out up against the tree trunks. Look at
this pile! You can see why we call them mulch volcanoes.
Look at all the roots that were cut in the trenching
process.
How could these guys not be aware that root injuries
like this harm the tree?
Maybe it’s almost time to remove those stakes?
Well, you can’t fault them on thoroughness – look,
they’re mulching the dead tree!
And here, they’ve even got the low branches covered!
That’s really extra effort!
Ok, all this is incredible malpractice. But some
people, not knowing any better, think it looks nice.
If your landscape maintenance effort is really
eye-catching, the neighbors might try to emulate it. Here, the guy
across the street apparently was inspired to mulch his pin oak.
Unfortunately, the material he had available was old
mortar and stucco!
Ok, I’m done complaining for a little while.
Next, I’ll show you how to do it right and why.
(go to
March 19 for Mulch Madness Part I)
A lot of arborist work is about helping people plan
The trees in your landscape today - and their values
based on condition, location, and species - are a result of decisions
that were made years ago. What you decide today determines the
future. With trees, you need to think long term. Here are 3
jobs we did last week and the plans we decided on.
1. Pruning to make a (damaged) tree safer
This customer had 2 silver maples in the backyard -
both in poor condition. The one in the rear was in such poor
health (almost dead) that removing it was the only sensible option.
But the one near the house provided shade over the deck, and the owners
would miss it terribly if it were gone. This tree had lots of
problems - big broken branches from past storms, weak co-dominant branch
structure, and the biggest portion of this misshapen tree hung out over
the roof of the house, where if it broke it would cause plenty of
damage. And silver maples are very prone to breakage. We
decided to prune the tree in such a way that the new growth on the
broken branches would be in a desirable direction and we pruned the big
leader over the house to reduce its size. And we cleared out the
dead wood.
After -
much less of a threat now, and it really doesn't look that bad!
Of course, I can't guarantee that this tree won't be
damaged again. After all, it is a silver maple. But
the owners should be able to enjoy it for several more years with much
less concern for their safety.
2. Pruning to train for the future
The next day (Thursday) we pruned several healthy young
trees in Collegeville. The goal was to train them so that as they
grow, they will have the strongest possible branch structure, and won't
encroach on the house as much.
The honey locust had two main leaders, and the one
towards the house had grown larger than the other. Ideally, it
should have been pruned when very young to maintain a single central
leader. It's now too late for that, but we can reduce the larger
leader to subordinate it and to help keep it away from the house.
Before
After
The tree was pruned to reduce the larger leader,
without destroying its appearance and in compliance with Ansi A300
pruning standards.
Also on this property was a young Sawtooth oak -
healthy and vigorous, but beginning to develop several co-dominant
stems. These are the upright branches with the tight-angle
crotches that will be likely to split in a storm when the tree is
bigger.
Before
After
We pruned the co-dominants to subordinate them, so the
center leader will remain dominant. In a few years, the
co-dominants can be removed or further subordinated and the tree will be
much less prone to storm damage as it grows to mature size.
3. Getting the new tree started is sometimes the best
plan
The last big snowstorm broke a really large branch on
the red maple in front of a client's house in Limerick. The tree
is on the south side of the house and the owner really appreciates its
shade in the summer. But now it's really disfigured, and it has
other problems that make it unlikely it will still be there in another
10-15 years: It has a girdling root problem due to improper
mulching in the past, and it is really too close to the house.
Whoever planted it did not take into consideration the potential size at
maturity.
Once the client was aware of all of this, he liked my
idea of getting a new tree started - a new tree that would eventually
get really big, but would be planted where it had room to grow. In
a few years, when the red maple finally has to go, the new bur oak tree
will be established and the loss will not seem so great.
Digging the new tree in the nursery
Planting the new tree
Another Big-tree Removal
We did another big-tree removal job yesterday.
This tree was a (catastrophic!) accident waiting to happen. The
owners have been aware of its condition, but had been reluctant to have
it taken down, partly because of the expense. But the last
windstorm caused a big branch to fall near the house, and now they
realized the job should not be put off any longer.
As much as I love trees, I wouldn't want a monster
The tree had a large split from an old lightning strike
Some pretty big wood! Imagine the damage it could do.
We are very busy now. The early spring weather is
contributing to this, I’m sure. And seeing all of the tree damage
from the last few storms has caused a lot of people to move tree
maintenance higher up on their priority lists. And I’m no
economist, but I know that an economic downturn is usually followed by
lots of work for us. There is always plenty of deferred
maintenance to catch up on when spending confidence returns. I’m
hoping this is a good sign.
Slideshow -
more photos of the removal job
I was asked to "top" a tree
On Monday I got a call from a man who wanted me to give
him a price to prune a tree. He told me on the phone that he would
want me to cut a considerable amount off of the top. Yesterday I
went to look at the tree. It was the only tree in the back yard,
and would have been a very nice tree except that it had obviously been
“topped” about 5 years ago.
Can you see where the topping cuts were made?
The crown of the tree was made up of clusters of long,
weakly attached sprouts as the result of the trees’ growth response to
the previous incorrect pruning.
What I now need to explain to him (he wasn’t home
at the time of my visit) is that cutting the top off of his tree again
will not achieve anything positive for him.
If he doesn’t want the tree to become “too big” and
threatening to his safety, re-topping the tree would actually be
completely counterproductive to his goal. Because what happens
when a tree is wounded this way is that (if it’s healthy and has the
necessary stored energy) it produces vigorous new growth. This
tree has grown approximately 15 feet in the last 5 years. Normal
annual growth for this species (it’s a sugar maple) is about 6 inches.
If NOTHING had been done 5 years ago, it wouldn’t be any bigger (maybe
even not as big) as it is now. And all that new vigorous sprout
growth is less sturdy that the natural branching structure would have
been – the point of attachment of each sprout is made up of only 5
growth rings, plus there is a column of internal decay below each of the
old topping cuts.
The sprout attachments are weak, tight-angle crotches.
Now, after 5 years the trees growth rate is becoming
closer to normal. I could do some corrective pruning – cut away
the dead stubs, thin the sprouts to remove the excess and retain the
stronger ones, and train for future growth that will produce the
strongest possible branch structure. This will be a pretty lot of
work, but it would be worth doing – it’s a young, vigorous tree without
any other problems, and there is plenty of space for it to grow to its
natural size. The tree would have needed way less work (at way
less cost!) if all it needed now was normal maintenance pruning.
But it will need nothing more than a little minor pruning every few
years once we take care of the corrective work.
But first I have to explain all this to the customer
and convince him not to just repeat the previous mistake.
TOPPING IS MALPRACTICE! Those who perform it are
either ignorant of tree biology, or unscrupulous!
P.S. - The next time we do a removal of a tree that was
damaged by topping I'll post some autopsy pictures.
Mulch Madness is in full swing now!
Everywhere I go it seems that employees of the
assembly-line landscape maintenance companies are doing their annual
GROSS MALPRACTICE of piling soil and mulch against the tree trunks.
When these guys dig their little
trenches to define the edge of the mulched area they cut and injure the
trees roots. Then, often, the soil that's dug in the process gets
piled on top of last years mulch. Then they'll cover it with more
mulch. In addition to the health problems caused by the mulch
being in contact with the bark of the trunk, this is one of the primary
causes of the growth of roots in a pattern that girdles and eventually
kills these trees.
But may be you're thinking "I see
this going on everywhere." Maybe even at every house on your
street. So Warren must be full of crap, everybody besides him
couldn't possibly be wrong! Well, if you don't believe me, just
Google the term mulch volcano and see what you come up with!
(mulch volcano is the derisive term used by knowledgeable people in the
world of horticulture to describe this abomination.)
WHAT
THE HECK ?!?!
Since this is probably the biggest tree health problem
I have to deal with, you will see MUCH MORE on this subject coming to
this page. Stay Tuned.
Warren
The Daffodils are in bloom outside my office window!
Spring at last!
What to Do When Your Tree is Damaged By a Snowstorm
Let me start with the story of one persons’ misfortune
because it is such a powerful learning experience.
“The mysterious case of the death of Mr. Key’s
sycamore”.
Ted Key was famous for his cartoons
–particularly “Hazel” – which you surely remember if you are of a
certain age. Less famously, he also loved his trees.
For me, a visit to his house near Valley Forge was
always a delight because he would insist on giving me the tour of his
personal little ”arboretum.” He’d always test me, pointing to an
unusual specimen such as his beautiful Cunninghamia, and saying
“you know what this is?”
One day in 1997 he called and asked me to look at his
big sycamore tree. It was suddenly dying and he had no idea why.
The whole top of the tree was dead and the trunk was covered with sprout
growth. Mr. Key was heartbroken to lose this magnificent tree, but
it now needed to be cut down; in this condition it was a threat to the
house.
The
top of the Keys sycamore is nearly dead and the main trunk is covered
with sprouts (above)
With the sprouts removed you can see the cankered spike injuries (below)
So we cut away the trunk sprouts and the mystery was
immediately solved: the bark had evidence of injury due to someone
climbing it using climbing spikes. The spike wounds had become the
site for a canker disease infection. Each year for the past 5
years, the vulnerable woundwood surrounding the injured tissue was
killed by the canker, leaving widening concentric rings of dead wood.
After about the 5th year, as the increasing dead areas
coalesced, half of the circumference of the trees cambium was killed.
When I explained this to Mr. and Mrs. Key, they both
said my conclusion could not be accurate – no one was ever allowed to
climb any of their trees using spikes – the Keys knew better. I
showed them the concentric canker rings, counting them backwards to the
little hole in the middle, and said yes, unfortunately someone did and
it was in about 1991. Mrs. Key suddenly said “OH NO! Now I
remember!” There had been a nasty ice storm about 6 years before,
and some guy knocked on her door and told her that, for the small price
of 50 bucks (since he was in the neighborhood) he’d climb up the tree
and get the broken branch that was hanging in the top. She agreed,
and the man went out to his truck and began to strap on his climbing
spikes. Mrs. Key was watching and said “you can’t use spikes,
they’ll injure my tree.” The man assured her the injury would be
insignificant and it would heal right away, it wasn’t going to hurt the
tree. So he did it. 6 years later we knew that she was right
and he was wrong. But a terrible way to learn the lesson.
A
lowering device is lashed in place in preparation for the removal .
Can you see the spike mark in the center of the concentric rings of
canker dieback?
Don't panic – it’s not a health emergency for the tree! The tree
doesn’t need first aid. It’s not going to bleed to death.
· Don’t panic – once safety issues are resolved – things like broken
branches precariously suspended over targets like your house, sidewalk
and driveway, there is no longer an emergency.
· Don’t
panic
– trying to remove heavy snow or ice from trees or shrubs is likely to
cause additional damage. The damage is already done. Wait
for it to melt. Once the weight is gone, branches often remain
bent in position. They may remain “frozen in place” for a while
after the weight is gone, but they will recover amazingly as the weather
warms. I can then bend some branches back to where they should be,
or make targeted pruning cuts so that the subsequent growth will be of
the desired form. (If some type of unprofessional hackery occurs
before I can do this, it will be much more difficult for me to get the
desired results.)
So the message here is – if nothing is blocking your
driveway or threatening a target – wait. Wait until the
restoration and pruning can be done by someone who knows what they are
doing. Improper pruning cuts or those that damage branch collars
will cause permanent damage. Malpractice such as this is the
biggest potential problem for storm damaged trees.
Malpractice by unqualified handypersons or homeowners
poses the greatest threat to the future health of damaged trees.
The past week's tree-related headlines were topped by a
tragedy
Torrential rains soaked southern California for several
days. In San Jose, a family returning home parked their car under
a large shade tree in front of their house. Just as the parents
were unbuckling their 2-year-old son from his car seat, the tree fell
and crushed the car, killing the young boy. News articles on the
story were accompanied by many reader comments about the accident, some
readers blaming the city for being negligent for allowing a hazard tree
to exist, and some asserting that such an "act of God" was horrific, but
unpredictable.
A casual observer probably could not have anticipated
the failure of this tree. But evidence I saw (from 3,000 miles
away, of course) showed some defects that would have raised red flags
for an arborist, had one been employed to assess the condition of the
tree. Previous improper pruning and the burying of the tree's
trunk flare was obvious, and would have indicated to the arborist a need
for a more comprehensive inspection, which in turn would likely have
resulted in the prediction of a high probability of failure. But
of course, it is too late now.
After the tree had fallen the reason for its failure
was obvious - there was very little support root structure remaining.
But the question (for the lawyers to decide) - whose
fault was it? Was this an unpredictable "act of God" or should the
church, on whose property the tree stood, be held liable for the car
owner's loss because it failed to remove a predictable hazard?
Once again the average person probably would not have
noticed an impending catastrophe by looking at the tree. It
probably looked reasonably healthy, and there were no really obvious
defects to the above-ground portion. But, (also once again) an
inspection by a qualified arborist would surely have turned up evidence
of this tree's hazard potential.
Do you see the "mushroom" at the base of the tree
trunk?
This is the fruiting body of a decay fungus (it appears
to be Inonotus dryadeus). This would have told me that the
tree probably has an extensively decayed root system. With that
information the tree owner might have decided to do something to avoid
this problem.
But, once again it is now too late. And, as I
said, it's now a job for the lawyers.
Herbie the Famous Elm tree of Yarmouth, Maine has been
cut down. See the excellent TV video of the story.
The tree news story of the week has been about the
demise of a veteran tree in Yarmouth, Maine. It was probably the
largest remaining American elm in New England, and one of the few big
ones that has, until now, escaped the deadly Dutch elm disease.
This excellent TV video includes an interview with the 101 year old
former town arborist who helped keep the tree alive for the past 50
years.
http://www.wcsh6.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=62356396001
Today we did our first cat rescue
There's no such thing as a cat stuck up in a tree.
If he could get up there, he can get down. Never saw a cat
skeleton in a tree, ever!
So today, the phone rang while I was at my desk
(indoors, my least favorite work environment). The caller said he
had an unusual question and didn't know who else to call. His cat
had been in the top of a tree in his backyard for over two days.
He sounded like he was slightly embarrassed to ask me to come out and
rescue it. He also sounded worried.
I told him I'd call him right back, after I contacted
my crew. I called the crew's two cell phones and got no answer
(our job sites can be loud). While waiting for their return call,
I pondered this job request. Should we do it? The cat will
probably come down itself eventually. Will my climber be reluctant
to risk getting scratched and bitten over a cat? Then I
decided "yes - of course we're going to do this - we can use the blanket
method of wrapping the cat, like when we need to take ours to the vet,
to avoid being injured if the cat's response is ungrateful. And
besides, this guy's concern is genuine - he didn't even ask what I'd
charge, he just wanted his cat safe.
So I called the man back and told him we'd be there
within an hour. I drove to the nearby property where my men were
working and enlisted my foreman, Ricky. We took the tree truck
(which contains every piece of equipment we could possibly need) and
together we went to Eagleville to meet the anxious cat owner.
He was waiting outside when we got there and pointed
immediately to the top of the tallest ash tree at the rear of his
property. The cat's name is Budweiser. A big orange tom cat.
It was petrified. Its free paw was actually shaking as it looked
down at us. Ricky proceeded to set his climbing line in the tree,
using the throwball. This scared the cat even more, causing it to
pee. A lot. Thankful that the cat's bladder was now probably
empty, Ricky ascended the tree.
Almost there!
"Bud" is bundled for the trip down.
Ricky wouldn't have needed the blanket - the cat seemed
very agreeable to receive company up there. The descent was
uneventful.
Coming down
So back to the beginning of this story. The myth
that it is impossible for a cat to get into a situation where it can't
come down is just that - a myth. In most cases they eventually
will get out of the predicament on their own, especially if left alone
without too much fuss and attention. But if several days go by and
they are still up there with no food and especially with no shelter in
bad weather, they probably actually do need intervention.
Safe!
I learned a lot about this topic and you can too, from
Dan Kraus's website:
catinatreerescue.com. Dan is
a world-class professional climber and a really good guy, and his
website contains a directory of climbers throughout this country
and internationally (!) who are willing to take on this type of
emergency rescue job.
It's been a while since I've showed tree news through
this column, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been any. The last
months of 2009 were actually very eventful in the local arborworld, I've
just been a little too preoccupied to report on it. But I promise to get
back on here really soon with a recap. Check back next week if
you're curious.
W.
Does your oak tree look bad?
It might be bacterial leaf scorch. OR IT MIGHT
NOT. There is NO WAY to be certain except by laboratory analysis
using an immune response test. Of course, it's always important to
correctly diagnose a problem before deciding how to treat it.
The wet weather we have experienced this year has
provided favorable growing conditions for many leaf diseases of trees -
in the case of oaks these would be oak anthracnose, Tubakia leafspot,
leaf blister, and powdery mildew. (If you are trying to diagnose
the cause of your oak's disease symptoms by looking at pictures on the
internet be aware that oak wilt disease has not yet been found east of
the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania).
None of these leaf diseases (all caused by fungi)
normally warrant control measures. They are very unlikely to
permanently impact tree health, and probably won't be an issue next year
unless we get another very wet growing season.
Bacterial leaf scorch is a different problem. The
bad news is it will not go away (even if treated with antibiotics -
don't be misled). The good news is that BLS alone is not going to
kill your tree, at least not quickly and not without the combined impact
of other factors.
Bacterial leaf scorch has had a lot of media publicity
in the past several years. Unfortunately, it seems like a few
unscrupulous tree care "professionals" have risen to the occasion,
victimizing unsuspecting customers by recommending inappropriate, or
bogus, treatments, or by recommending removal of trees based on strictly
visual diagnosis. Bacterial leaf scorch CAN NOT BE DIAGNOSED WITH
CERTAINTY WITHOUT A LAB TEST. And usually a symptomatic tree will
be suffering from other ailments such as chlorosis, pest problems,
previous moisture stress, root damage, soil problems, etc. that may
actually be a bigger factor than the disease.
Don't be scammed. Get an accurate diagnosis before you
make a management decision. If in doubt get a second opinion,
preferably from someone who has no financial reward at stake, such as
your
Penn State Extension office.
More information about bacterial leaf scorch is
available in my
article on this site.
Interesting Removal Job
It was a great big tuliptree and it had been struck by
lightning the previous Sunday. I agreed with the owner that
removing the tree was the best option, even though you can’t always tell
right away whether or not a lightning-struck tree will survive. It
was a double-trunked tree and both trunks were significantly splintered
from the strike. There were other defects too – it had been
improperly pruned (topped) at least twice over the last 40 years and,
though not obvious to a non-professional, there were large decayed and
hollow limbs and weak re-growth as a result. And it was right next
to the house!
It would be a pretty expensive job, but the client
told me I was the low bidder! I thought perhaps the other 2 tree
companies thought the job might be a little too tricky for them and they
didn’t really want it. The client suggested perhaps they (the
others) felt they could take advantage of the situation because
insurance would be paying for it. (The claim was denied, at any
rate).
So we decided to treat it as an emergency- the owner
was really concerned about the danger. We did the job on Monday.
We were well prepared, with a big crew, and the job looked like it
should actually end up being fairly routine until I spotted the bees!
Honey bees. In the hollow created by one of the
old topping wounds was a colony of honey bees. Now what? We
opted not to kill them, as it appeared they were not easily agitated.
Honey bee colonies vary in their levels of aggressiveness depending on
the queen. It seemed like this was a very docile queen.
The climber was not afraid of them, and he simply went
about his business piecing down the tree with the bees paying him hardly
any attention. The last cut, however, did get them riled up as it
dumped their home forty feet to the ground. We waited until the
next morning to fell the remaining trunk.
Here is a slide show of the day’s work. Note the
photos of the climber working with bees buzzing all around him!
Click here to view the slideshow
It has been a somewhat
hectic past couple of weeks – lots going on for me including several
violent thunderstorms that inflicted lightning strikes and wind damage
on numerous trees in our area. But today I’m taking some time out
to catch up on posting some of the interesting tree phenomena I’ve
observed recently.
-
Another "Emerald Ash
Borer" Scare
-
Cedar apple rust in
Collegeville PA
-
Violent storm tests
cable system
-
and an update on the
tomatoes
Another “Emerald Ash Borer” Scare
I was called to the clients'
home because her beloved huge white ash was not looking healthy- lots of
dead wood- and had been receiving a hammering from wood peckers.
When I checked the tree, besides the woodpecker holes, I observed many
exit holes in the bark that had been produced by boring insects.
Some were the typical oval shape of the ash-lilac borer, but some had
that dreaded “D” shape that could possibly indicate EMERALD ASH BORER.
Sure looks similar to E.A.B!
I looked closer, picking
away at some of the dead bark and poking into the borer holes.
Eventually I found, to my relief (and the tree owner, Anna’s!), the wing
cover of an adult ash- lilac borer in one of the “D” shaped holes.
False Alarm!! Not EAB!
The client REALLY wanted to
save the tree, but I didn’t want to waster her money on an expensive
pruning job if it were doomed anyway because of Emerald Ash Borer.
So my men climbed the tree and checked the dead branches, also, for
signs of E.A.B. infestation. All clear. We went ahead with
the pruning. The tree is not in the greatest health but it’s now a
lot safer without all those dead branches above the driveway and patio.
And it looks nicer too, don’t you think?
Cedar Apple Rust
A client in Collegeville
asked me to look at her apple trees, which appeared unhealthy as the
leaves were turning color and dropping off.
Viewed up close, the leaves
display the orange colored lesions typical of cedar apple rust.
Nearby, at the property
line, is an Eastern red cedar tree that is completely infested with
cedar apple rust galls.
This is an interesting
disease because it has a two year life cycle – spores (aeciospores)
released in summer from the fungal fruiting bodies on the apple leaves
travel through the air and when they land on Eastern red cedar or
another susceptible juniper infect that host and produce galls that, in
the spring, produce spores (basidiospores) that, in turn, infect leaves
of nearby apple trees. To see the fruiting galls on juniper in
spring (an incredible sight!) scroll to the April 21 entry in this
column.
I also noticed evidence of a
canker fungus disease (possibly Botrosphaeria) and fireblight, a disease
caused by a bacteria – Erwinia amylovora – both causing injury and death
of branches.
If my client can convince
her neighbor to remove the cedar tree (it is not a nice tree, either
location or health-wise_ her apple trees will probably have much less
leaf-spot problems in future years.
This winter we will do
maintenance pruning on the apple trees, including removing the dead
wood. This should reduce the problem with the Botrosphaeria and
Erwinia diseases.
Violent Storm Tests Cable System
Back in May of 2007 a client
from Schwenksville came to me with a dilemma: she has a big Norway maple
near the street in front of her house that was very much alive, but in
very fragile condition because of extensive decay from old injuries.
The best thing to do, I told her, would be to cut down the tree, because
it was a hazard – if it broke, which it eventually would, it was likely
to land in the street, pulling down high voltage wires and possibly
hurting someone driving by.
She did not want to remove
the tree because it provided a screen from the road, plus it would be an
expensive job. She wanted an alternative solution to reduce the
risk. A typical cable system would not be a long-term repair, the
tree was way too far gone for that. But I offered a compromise
plan of installing a non-static cable – a special very strong
hollowbraid Dacron rope with big eye splices connecting it to the main
trunk and the perilous leader over the street. This would protect
the weak branch to a degree but, more importantly, keep it from crashing
into the street if it did break.
Well, yesterday it broke.
There was no way it could withstand the extremely violent winds from the
thunderstorm that came through yesterday afternoon. But the cable
held, and the big heavy branch remained suspended above the street.
We had the mess cleaned up by 8:00 this morning, to the relief of the
concerned client.
Tomato Update
I still haven’t lost any
more tomato plants. I have been spraying them after each rain and
I guess that has been working. It hasn’t rained for a whole week
up until today, and there is some nice lush green new growth on top –
not marred by the phototoxic “burn” of the phosphorous acid.
I have never applied regular
chemical sprays in my vegetable garden in all my 40+ years of gardening.
My crops are normally 99+% organically grown, not because I have any
fanatical fear of modern crop protection chemicals or synthetic nitrogen
but because I just don’t normally need them. The soil is fertile
because I till in cover crops and lots of composted wood chips.
And this year I made my own fish emulsion fertilizer out of all the
filleted carcasses of the bluefish I caught this spring. If I were
to use pesticides the decision to do so would be based on the same
IPM/plant health care principles I use when caring for a client’s trees.
First watch plants for potentially damaging pests, then intervene only
when those pests reach a threshold population. For me the
threshold is losing the crop – I’m not trying to please any fussy
supermarket shoppers that would freak if they found a caterpillar on
their broccoli. When I do nothing, natural predators usually keep
the pests under control.
Pardon the digression, back
to the tomatoes. I actually feel kind of lucky that I detected the
late blight in time. Apparently the disease is still rampant in
our area. Just last Saturday I was at a client’s property and she
showed me her sick tomato plants. I advised her to take a sample
to the Montgomery County Cooperative Extension office in Creamery.
When I came back to do the tree work on Friday the plants were gone.
She lost them all! And these were established plants from a
reputable source pretty far from the nearest neighbor.
And in Harleysville there is
a huge community garden I can’t help gawking at every time I drive by.
Beautiful vegetable plants of all kinds immaculately maintained.
But driving by on Friday it appeared they were about to lose the
tomatoes – hundreds of plants that appeared perfect up until now.
So this story is not over.
Update on Tomato Late Blight
It looks like I might not lose my remaining tomato plants. Last
Saturday - 1 week ago today - I removed and burned all of the plants
that showed severe symptoms. But most of the plants had some part
that looked infected, and instead of destroying them I pruned out the
bad parts. I have been spraying with Daconil, and a week ago I
started also using Agrifos - a fungicide containing potassium salts of
phosphorous acid. This is a material that can possibly be used by
organic gardeners. I have used Agrifos experimentally, along with
a material to enable it to penetrate the bark, on trees, and just
learned it's registered for food crops also. In the past week I
have seen no spread of the late blight disease in my garden.
Oh, and by the way, I got my first ripe tomatoes this week. The
earliest in the summer I can ever remember. They are on the
Rutgers' Mortons that are advertised to be an early ripener. I
guess they are!
More on Tomato Late Blight
What Should the Home Gardener Do?
So up to now the only advice I have heard has been, basically, :
if you have late blight there is nothing you can do to save your plants
- rip them all out and carefully dispose of them to prevent the spread
of the pathogen. But today, I found some more in-depth advice on
the Penn State Master Gardeners blog. Check these 2 very
interesting articles:
*
Late Blight - What Should the Home Gardener Do? - Rescuing Plants
* Late Blight - What Should the Home Gardener
Do? - Destroying Plants
You need to click Permalink at the bottom of the articles to see the
comments.
Also, here are 2 good articles that explain a little about who and what
are responsible for this problem.
* Greenhouse Grower -
Disease Costs Bonnie Plants $1 M in Recall
* Garden Detective -
Alert - Late Blight Disease... and
Update - Late Blight Disease
!! UPDATE !!
LATE BLIGHT TOMATO DISEASE CONFIRMED
Recently I sent samples of
my unhealthy tomato plants to the Plant Disease Clinic at Penn State.
They called me right back and confirmed that my plants had late blight.
If you grow tomatoes PLEASE READ my
previous article
about late blight, and please examine your plants. This
is an extremely serious situation. And if you do
have it, it affects not only you but your neighbors and any local tomato
farmers!
GARDENER ALERT - TOMATO DISEASE OUTBREAK
A couple of weeks ago I bought a tomato plant at Home Depot and planted
it in a barrel on my deck. Shortly after planting it, it developed
severe disease symptoms, so I pulled it out and tossed it in the weeds.
Then last Monday (6/29) I got an email message from Rutgers University
Ag. Station, warning that the Northeastern U.S. has a disease problem
that is different from other years.
The disease is late blight (Phytopthora infestans). This is
the disease that caused the Irish potato famine. It kills infected
tomato, potato and other related species of plants VERY QUICKLY and is
also EXTREMELY CONTAGIOUS. The cool wet weather we’ve experienced
is the ideal condition for late blight development.
But what’s really different about this year is that late blight has
never been seen this early in the season over a large region. And
worst of all, infected plants have been distributed from Ohio to Maine
through large retail stores that sell a big volume of plants all
originating from the same supplier (Bonnie Plants, of Georgia, according
to sources I located on the internet).
So yesterday, I stopped at the same Home Depot and tried to warn the
person in charge of the plant department. She said “what do you
want from me?” I was only trying to be helpful, but that wasn’t at
all appreciated. I guess there’s a lot of money at stake for these
big companies, but I do not agree with their apparent unwillingness to
face up to the problem. Then I went home and examined the tomato
plants in my garden, about 80 plants, mostly heirlooms I grew from seed.
Five of the Rutgers Ramapos were infected with late blight and I yanked
them (and disposed of the properly this time!)
So the message is monitor your tomato plants VIGILANTLY to watch for
late blight symptoms, especially is you got some of them at what the
Rutgers and Penn State alerts refer to as “the Big Box Stores.”
The wet leaf lesions and dark colored lesions on the stems are quite
obvious to the naked eye.
Photos – infected leaf and
stem on Ramapo tomato in my garden
If you find infected plants, remove them immediately, don’t compost
them-bag them and get rid of them to reduce the chance of spreading the
innoculum. For more info go to
http://www.njfarmfresh.rutgers.edu/documents/Lateblightalertforgardeners_001.pdf
Emerald Ash Borer found in
Kentucky
Last week the office of the
State Entomologist in Kentucky confirmed reports of this devastating
invasive insect in Shelby and Jessamine Counties.
Emerald ash borer was
introduced to the US from China by way of imported wood products.
Since its discovery in 2002 it has spread rapidly, and will probably
continue to do so.
Emerald ash borer was
detected in Pennsylvania in the westernmost part of the state in 2007,
and hasn't been found farther east until just this past February (2009)
when it showed up in Mifflin County (in the middle of PA) so learn what
to look for if you have ash trees - apparently there is no stopping it
from eventually reaching us. More info at
http://ento.psu.edu/extension/trees-shrubs/emerald-ash-borer.
DON'T PANIC! Your ash tree is going to be OK.
Have you noticed lots of
leaves falling from your ash trees this past week (week of May 17th)?
Do the leaves look like this?
These trees will recover
within the next couple of weeks, and will look fine for the rest of the
season, with no permanent harm. The culprit is a fungus disease
called ash anthracnose, and the reason it is so noticeable this
year is because we had a week of rainy weather just as the leaves were
in their most vulnerable stage -partially expanded. Once the
leaves are fully formed, they will no longer be susceptible to the ash
anthracnose pathogen, even if the spores are present and climatic
conditions favor the disease. Don't let anyone talk you into
treating this disease - sprays, injections or any other treatments will
do absolutely no good. In order to effectively treat this disease,
the fungicide must be applied BEFORE the symptoms reach this point.
Because we can't predict the weather in any given year, to treat a tree
for ash anthracnose involves a fungicide application PREVENTIVELY,
whether it will make a difference (wet spring) or not (dry weather at
leaf expansion time). Ash anthracnose poses very little impact on
the health of a healthy ash tree. It is mostly a nuisance (and
perhaps a surprise) to the tree owner. I do not recommend
bothering with preventive sprays, unless the tree is already in
precarious health or the tree is located where the leaf-drop nuisance is
actually a real problem.
We removed a couple of big
trees yesterday. They were in a tight spot, with lots of
obstacles. But the right people and the right equipment really
made the job easy. Can you believe we got paid to have this much
fun?
Penn-Del ISA Arbor Day of Service
There are many landscapes
consisting of wonderful specimens of old and valuable trees whose owners
- public institutions, parks, old cemeteries, etc. - do not have the
financial means to provide the care these trees deserve.
The local chapter of our
professional society, The International Society of Arboriculture, tries
to do something about that.
Each year a nice bunch of
volunteer arborists from Penn-Del ISA gets together to perform a day of
free tree care service for a needy organization.
This year the very worthy
recipient was the Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia. What a
magnificent site this is! It's a National Historic Landmark, and a
horticulturally significant 54 acre oasis right in the middle of
Philadelphia, near the University of Pennsylvania.
Today, "Earth Day" 2009, was
the day. Rick, Scott and I had a really fun time working together,
in well-organized teamwork, with fellow arborists from around the
chapter. Some of use are competitors in business the rest of the
year, but that doesn't keep us from being best of comrades for this
labor of love.
We met new friends, shared
stories (many with similar themes) and got a lot of really high quality
pruning work done.
What a satisfying day it's
been! I'm tired! Good Night!
Cedar Apple Rust
This morning as the rain was
clearing out, I went to a clients property in Collegeville to quote some
pruning work. While there I noticed an eastern red cedar tree that
was just beginning to "bloom" with the reproducing stages of cedar apple
rust.
This common disease has a
very interesting lifecycle : the fungus that grows as a leaf spot
disease on apple trees produces spores which, when carried by the wind
are deposited on cedars or other species of juniper, grow to form galls
on the juniper twigs. Then, after a spring rain when the
temperature is suitable, the galls erupt into a brilliant orange
jelly-like substance that is the spore producing stage on cedars.
This reproducing stage occurs magically fast after the rain, then only
lasts a few days. Spores from this fruiting body then infect the
leaves of apple trees to complete the 2-stage lifecycle.
Galls just starting to expand
Fruiting body
The beautiful weather of this weekend will surely
kick off our spring busy season. I can’t wait, it’s been a long
winter!
The Virginia bluebells in front of my office window
are now in full bloom.
Note the spring beauties and
a few dandelion in the lawn in foreground :mine’s not the typical
suburban sprayed sterile lawn.
Today I saw the first
blossom in my strawberry patch. Spring’s definitely here
Also today, in my driveway,
I spotted this beautiful emerald green beetle.
THIS IS NOT THE DREADED
EMERALD ASH BORER! (the adult EAB does not emerge for another two
months). And, thankfully, they still have not been found here in
Montgomery County, although they are in western PA.
The webs of eastern tent
caterpillar are starting to become noticeable on the native cherries in
the woods, as well as on the crabapple in my nursery.
I get a lot of calls about
ETC, (with people often confusing it with other more destructive pests
such as gypsy moth). Don’t let them worry you - they are not going
to invade like some of the introduced pests and populations are kept in
check by natural enemies such as assassin bugs, parasites and birds.
(it’s a favorite food of the Baltimore oriole) I’m not going to
spray the ones in my nursery, I’ll probably just destroy the nests
before they eat a lot of leaves.
If I’d noticed this egg
mass – the things that look like a swollen area on the twig - over the
winter, I could have just pulled it off then and prevented its hatch.
Exciting things are
happening outdoors every day, and at an especially fast pace at this
time of year. I’m going to try to keep you updated with regular
posts here on this site, hopefully with some links to more information
on some of the topics.
252A Fulmer Rd. Perkiomenville, PA 18074 610-287-7107 warren@jacobstreesurgery.com