As soon as you plant a tree, it requires concise, consistent, consideration, and support, in order to thrive and be protected. The best thing you can do to ensure your tree’s survival is to make sure it doesn’t get damaged. This means that the appropriate planting, upkeep, and protective prevention measures are needed to be done in order to safeguard your trees prosperity and survival. Five Star Tree Services is going to go over what you need to know in order to help your tree prosper.
Proactive Preventative Methods
Proper Selection and Planting Methods
To prevent injuries to your new tree, the most significant thing you can do is proper selection, appropriate positioning, and planting. Before you plant anything, you need to survey the planting site to make sure it is appropriate for your tree. You can’t think of your tree as just a sapling but need to take into consideration how big it is going to get. This means you need to think ahead to how much room the leaves, branches, and roots will require. This is imperative to your tree’s future success and health. When initially selecting a tree, make sure that it has a nicely developed crown with no damages to its trunk or branches.
Mulch
A significant step in planting and upkeeping a tree is mulching. When done correctly, mulch will improve the rate of a tree’s development, help against diseases, and retain soil dampness. When mulching, put it around the base of the tree, but not touching the trunk, and pile it until it is 2-4 inches deep. When needed, re-apply mulch if it gets depleted.
You can use things like wood chips, bard, or other natural materials as mulch. We do not recommend using plastic sheets or rocks as a mulch. Rocks are known to cause the soil to compact and plastic sheets will choke the roots.
Water
There is a perfect balance you need to find for watering. You don’t want to underwater your tree and you also don’t want to overwater it as well, either can result in the death of your new tree. Newly planted trees need about an inch of water once a week, without ant precipitation. Whereas trees that are more mature can take an inch of water every 10-14 days. Overwatering not only waterlogs the young tree, but it also takes away the oxygen in the soil, damaging the roots, can stop the development of new roots, and slow down the development of already established roots.
Fertilizer
Only fertilize a tree when it is necessary. You do not need to fertilize your tree if you see it is growing with consistent and good development, the leaves are doing well, and nothing else appears wrong with the tree. However, if you do require the use of fertilizer because you see your tree is not doing well, use a moderate amount of granular compost that is evenly distributed over the entire root system.
Pruning
Proper planning and a cautionary hand are essential when pruning trees. You need to make cuts outside the branch bark edge in the tissue in order to avoid cutting directly into the trunk. If you leave any stubs from these cut branches, this will lead to undesired growth and potentially rotting due to the excess tissue left behind. Cutting too close to the trunk can also have devastating injuries and cause dieback of the area affected.
Control Risks
Inconsiderate Use of Yard Tools and Equipment
Many tree injuries are acquired from careless uses of things like lawn mowers, cutters, weed whackers, and other yard maintenance tools. There are important vascular tissues found in the bark that get severed or damaged by wounds created with these tools. When this happens, it can trigger the tree to rot and eventually die. If you use mulch around the base of your trees, this helps to reduce the need to cut things like grass or weeds close to the base of your tree. Therefore, reducing the risk of damaging and potentially killing your tree. You need to be as careful as possible when you are using ant tools near the base of your tree.
Excessive Digging and Soil Changes
You can potentially cut and damage tree roots if you are digging close to a tree. All tree roots are imperative for its development. If you need to dig a trench or dig near a tree, you need to leave 18 inches of the upper soil untouched. If ever needed, when cutting tree roots, these should be cut neatly. By ripping or tearing roots, this can stall the development of new roots from the open injuries.
Soil composition and quality can also harm your tree. In the upper 18 inches of the soil, roughly 90% of your tree’s roots exist. If you add even 3 more inches of soil on top of your tree roots, this can choke out the roots and cause death. Make sure to continuously monitor the soil accumulation around your tree and remove any excess if necessary and alternatively add any if it gets lowered and you see root exposure.
How Five Star Tree Services Can Help
Taking care of trees seems a little harder now, doesn’t it? But don’t worry, as long as you follow our helpful guides, you will have healthy and prosperous trees in no time! If you have any questions or concerns about any of your trees, contact Five Star Tree Services us at (416) 990-3355 to help with our Richmond Hill Tree Care Services! Check out our website for more information.