Summer is upon us and it is getting hot! While we enjoy all the bright, sunny, dry days, our beloved plants and trees don’t love it as much. Making sure your trees are getting enough water during the summer is important. Without it, your trees are going to suffer. There needs to be enough water that saturates all the way down to the roots. But during these long, hot days, if there is a light rain, it will end up evaporating and not get into the soil deep enough to feed your tree. Our team at Five Star Tree Services want to go over how you can protect your trees from drought this summer.
Drought Negative Effects on Trees
Here are some signs that your tree is being affected by a lack of water.
-Foliage is small and stunted
-Weak root structures
-Crown die-back
-Wilting leaves
-Resistance to pests and disease is decreased
-Complete collapse of newly planted trees
-Structural weakness
-Susceptible to branch drop
How To Get Your Trees Through a Drought
Deep Water Watering
The first and best thing you can possibly do for your trees is water them! This is especially important for young and newly planted trees. You should be deep watering your trees 2-3 times a week when you are experiencing drought conditions. Use a hose and slowly dribble water around the root base for about 30-45 minutes each time. In order to get the whole root system effectively and not lopsided water, you need to move the end of the hose and reposition it around the base 3-4 times during the watering session. If you don’t want to do that, get a soaker hose that will distribute the water around the tree. Make sure to not get the foliage wet when it is being exposed to the sun, this can cause the sun to scorch the leaves and also lead them to drying out.
Aerate the Soil
Trees need both water and oxygen to get to their roots. This means proper aeration is required around your tree. If you are unsure how to do this correctly, you can always enlist a professional arborist to help. They will have the right tools to get the job done properly and without hurting your tree. For this, they can use a high-pressure air tool to aerate and ease compaction. To avoid having to do this every so often, you can get your arborist to install aeration and watering tubes around the root zone of your tree. Now you will be able to effectively water your tree, as the tubes are installed at root depth. This also prevents the soil from getting compacted.
Fertilization
It never hurts to fertilize your trees. Adding essential nutrients can help give your tree the added boost it needs and help it survive the long summer. There are a number of different fertilizers you can use. Your local arborist can suggest good ones for your specific trees. Some that you can look into are ArborGain, Mycorrhizae, and BioChar.
How Five Star Tree Services Can Help
If you don’t help your trees get through a drought, this will put stress on them, damage the leaves/branches, and could even kill them. If you want your trees to live, giving them a little extra help during a drought is what they need. Our team at Five Star Tree Services would be happy to help your trees survive the summer months. If you require our tree care services in Toronto, make sure to contact us at (416) 990-3355!
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