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Archive for the trees tag

New DTE Energy tree trimming program faces homeowner backlash

December 22, 2014   •   Leave a Comment

If you have trees on your property that grow near power lines, pay close attention to this developing story…

Hometown Life:

Faced with the threat of an emergency injunction, DTE Energy has agreed to temporarily stop an aggressive tree-trimming program in the Bloomfield area.

“We voluntarily agreed to put the work on hold,” DTE spokesman Scott Simons said Wednesday. “We will be meeting Friday with Bloomfield Hills City Manager Jay Cravens and Bloomfield Township Supervisor Leo Savoie to continue building on a series of meeting we’ve had with both communities.”

Following a directive from the Michigan Public Service Commission, DTE Energy and Consumers Energy are implementing an aggressive tree trimming program to help alleviate future power outages.

Read the rest of the story…

 

Additional Information:

DTE Launches new tree trimming program

Aggressive DTW Energy tree trimming occurring in Livonia

Filed Under: Clippings Tagged With: DTE Energy, easements, tree trimming, trees

Look up for power lines when planting trees

June 10, 2014   •   2 Comments

topped-spruce-jun-14

Does anything look odd about these trees planted under the power lines? We drove past right after a tree crew removed the top third of each of them. This example serves as a reminder to always keep power lines and the mature size of a tree in mind before planting.

 

Filed Under: Clippings Tagged With: power lines, trees

Janet’s Journal: Big trees in the 21st century

March 1, 2014   •   10 Comments

To set a new standard for the 21st century, let each gardener adopt and nurture just one tree. It has to have space to grow like this sycamore in a relative's field.
To set a new standard for the 21st century, let each gardener adopt and nurture just one tree. It has to have space to grow like this sycamore in a relative’s field.

 

With a simple pledge, gardeners can replace unrealistic expectations for street trees with a new tree ethic and plenty of safe big trees for the 21st century.
With a simple pledge, gardeners can replace unrealistic expectations for street trees with a new tree ethic and plenty of safe big trees for the 21st century.

“Have you seen those little holes they left in the new sidewalks downtown? For trees?! How do they expect a shade tree to grow in such a tiny space?”

It’s my turn to speak. My mind races through a lifetime of feelings about trees. What I see on that journey both surprises me and changes my position in a subtle and important way. Here’s a replay of that mental ride which begins back in my youth.

It’s great weather and I long to be outside, playing with my friends. We’re all under orders, however, to stay inside with all windows closed today. Standing at an upstairs window, I am still well under the canopy of a big elm at streetside. With the elms on each side and across the street it forms a solid ceiling.

I live in awe of the elms. Planted in the 19-teens, they are shading their third generation of hopscotch games and Sunday walks to church. Some are so big that the trunk fills the entire space from sidewalk to curb.

A truck unlike any I have seen proceeds along the street, a cannon on its back spraying fog into that high elm ceiling. I do not understand what is happening, but it has to do with the trees, so it interests me.

A gardener can be an advocate against threats to a tree, such as decking in the trunk, which will soon kill this linden, only 25 percent grown.
A gardener can be an advocate against threats to a tree, such as decking in the trunk, which will soon kill this linden, only 25 percent grown.

Next, I’m sitting on the front steps, in my pajamas. It’s nice that the elm in front of the house is gone because at dusk we can sit here and watch bats swoop and dart across the opening.

Then, I’m walking with friends, passing through alternating sections of light and shadow. We stop and kick at rings of mushrooms growing where those huge tree trunks once were. At a new ash, we take turns holding onto the trunk and pivoting around the tree. It’s such an odd thing, to be able to put one’s hands completely around a tree trunk.

Later, I’m a driver, taking in the neighborhood as a whole. What a shame that the big trees are gone. Some of the new ones snapped or stayed small, but some have begun to grow. Following belatedly in the path taken by adults of the neighborhood, I resign myself to waiting for the leafy ceiling to regrow.

As a young married, I shop for a house. To my husband and me, big trees are synonymous with a perfect home, but we buy a treeless house anyway. The seller tells us that the trees it had in front died a while back. There are trees on the neighbors’ lawns – not huge, but they do cast some shade. We plan to plant some of our own right away.

The gardener will not count as his or her tree for posterity any tree such as this tricolor beech…which has no chance to reach full size. (Purple beech, 50 feet).
The gardener will not count as his or her tree for posterity any tree such as this tricolor beech…which has no chance to reach full size. (Purple beech, 50 feet).

 

A few years later we put cranky, over-tired children to sleep with slow car rides through the new, smoothly paved subdivisions that are all around. Expert now in landscaping—we’ve planted and killed three trees in our yard, but feel we now know enough to keep the fourth, fifth and sixth alive—we cluck our tongues over the dinky trees lining these roads. We’re that much more grateful for the big elm and maple next door, and the neighbors’ tolerance of small children. Those trees are child magnets—meeting places for the young of the neighborhood. We wonder if our own trees will someday support tree houses and a crowd of climbing kids, like the trees of our childhood.

At high school graduation parties for our children’s friends, we look at trees in these other neighborhoods. So many streets with rows of ash or linden, trees that are still only ornament. Yet where there are larger trees casting pools of car-parking shade, the setting is quite unlike what we knew as children. These trees have a weakness to them – battle-scarred trunks and patchy crowns. Are we noticing this because we have made trees and plants our profession, or are they truly stunted and embattled as the elms of the 1950s and 60s never were?

Driving to a baby shower for a friend’s first grandchild, we pass the latest construction projects. Road work, installation of a big new drain, traffic accidents, and development of properties alongside have taken their toll. What was a green belt of big trees is a fading memory.

The future is clear in this respect: Mature shade trees at streetside like this gingko will likely not be a part of the 21st century landscape.
The future is clear in this respect: Mature shade trees at streetside like this gingko will likely not be a part of the 21st century landscape.

Back to the present and the discussion of a city’s new street tree planters. I’m brought up short. I have suddenly realized that our resigned waiting has lasted more than 40 years but still the big trees are not back! In four decades the replacement maples and ashes should have reached 60 feet tall or more but only a small percentage have done that. In many cases the elm replacements have themselves been replaced two or more times, having succumbed to disease, accident or side effects of paving, utility digs and reconstruction coming at increasingly short intervals.

We lost our trees to elm disease, replanted and waited for the time when things would settle down and return to “normal.” While we’ve waited, the world has changed in many different ways, some of which we fail to see. One of those blind spots has swallowed our big trees.

From the perspective of an era of elm-lined streets, it’s criminal to put a tree into a small hole surrounded by concrete. To those who see the reality of modern living, it’s business as usual.

Given the proliferation of underground utilities and related work, plus the frequency of major road changes and commercial area make-overs, trees along main streets and even most side streets won’t grow undisturbed for more than a decade. They cannot ever attain their old stature, aren’t expected to, and would even be an inconvenience to routine if they did. Air conditioning units in every building and car have devalued tree shade. Trees are planted now out of habit, and/or are designed into new, instant landscapes because nothing else provides enough height and mass to offset the new buildings they front.

We pave too much, dig too often, drive too recklessly, wield too many mowing and trimming tools at too great a pace to have big trees along our streets anymore. This is not evil nor is it a temporary condition. Changing our ways to once again accommodate big trees along the roads would mean that too much of the life we pave, dig, drive and rush to enjoy would also have to change, which is simply not realistic.

It’s time for my generation to shake itself and see this. We have to begin lobbying not for larger planting holes where modern life makes such a thing impossible, but more frequent replacement of trees that have reached their limit in those holes. More important, we have to plant more wisely, and soon (in places not along streets!), or the grandeur, reassurance and pleasures that come from mature trees will not be a part of our children’s children’s lives. Many of our children have already missed that experience.

I hope each gardener will look around and find a place where a tree can be expected to grow to maturity. Whether that’s in a back yard, neighborhood park, or subdivision commons area, let’s each plant one appropriate new tree or adopt an existing tree with potential and protect that tree. We can research the species to determine how big it can grow and how quickly. We can project that mature canopy and root mass onto the existing landscape and find ways to give the tree room to grow to those limits, both above and below ground.

I’ll water my tree during droughts, and learn what insects and diseases to watch for and fend off if they come. I’ll be its advocate when human activities around it become threatening and pass its care on to my children, heirs or successors on the land. I won’t ask that they keep everything in the landscape as I had it, just that they continue the stewardship of one particular tree.

In this way we may preserve and continue to grow big trees. Better yet, we’ll maintain the connection between growing people and growing things, one of the most precious relationships of all times.

 Janet Macunovich is a professional gardener and author of the books “Designing Your Gardens and Landscape” and “Caring for Perennials.” Read more from Janet on her website www.gardenatoz.com.

Filed Under: Janet’s Journal Tagged With: big trees, elm, elms, trees

Plymouth Township reaches Imprelis settlement with DuPont

October 8, 2013   •   Leave a Comment

Detroit Free Press:

Plymouth Township has reached settlements worth more than $300,000 total with the chemical giant DuPont over dozens of trees that were killed or damaged on public property by the weed-control agent Imprelis.

DuPont has paid out unspecified millions in settlements nationwide after withdrawing its herbicide Imprelis from the market in 2011 and acknowledging it was causing some tree species to die, including Norway spruce and white pines. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said at the time that DuPont knew the product could injure or kill certain trees yet failed to make that known to consumers.

Read the full story here…

Filed Under: Clippings Tagged With: DuPont, herbicide, Imprelis, trees

DNR advises caution to prevent spread of oak wilt disease

April 24, 2013   •   Leave a Comment

Oak wilt spreads from tree to tree through connected root systems. Untreated, the fungus spreads to adjacent red oak trees, often killing large groups of trees within a few years, eventually killing all nearby root-grafted oaks. These leaves are from an infected oak.
Oak wilt spreads from tree to tree through connected root systems. Untreated, the fungus spreads to adjacent red oak trees, often killing large groups of trees within a few years, eventually killing all nearby root-grafted oaks. These leaves are from an infected oak.

April 15 is the beginning of the yearly window when oak wilt can be transmitted from diseased to healthy red oak trees, the Department of Natural Resources announced.

According to Dr. Robert Heyd, forest pest management program manager for the DNR’s Forest Resources Division, oak wilt is a serious disease of oak trees—mainly red oaks, including northern red oak, black oak and pin oak. Red oaks often die within a few weeks after becoming infected. White oaks are more resistant, therefore the disease progresses more slowly.

“The normal time-tested advice is to prevent oak wilt by not pruning or otherwise “injuring” oaks from April 15 to July 15,” Heyd said. Heyd added that the spread of oak wilt occurs during this time of year as beetles move spores from fungal fruiting structures on the trees killed last year by oak wilt to wounds on healthy oaks. As warmer weather melts away snow and ice, the beetles that move oak wilt become active.

He said although oak wilt hasn’t been detected in every Michigan county, the need for vigilance is present statewide. “With the transport of firewood and other tree-related activities, you have to assume the risk is present, whether you live in metro Detroit or in the Upper Peninsula.”

Spring is a popular time for people to move firewood to vacation properties and other locations. During this April-to-July period, Heyd said it’s vital not to move wood from oak wilt-killed trees. These trees are often cut into firewood and moved, sometimes many miles from their original locations. Any wounding of oaks in this new area can result in new oak wilt infections as beetles move spores from the diseased firewood to fresh wounds on otherwise healthy trees.

The DNR recommends that anyone who suspects they have oak wilt-tainted firewood should cover it with a plastic tarp all the way to the ground, leaving no openings. This keeps the beetles away and generates heat inside the tarp, helping to destroy the fungus. Once the bark loosens on the firewood, the disease can no longer be spread.

New oak wilt sites have been traced to spring and early summer wounding from tree-climbing spikes, rights-of-way pruning, nailing signs on trees and accidental tree-barking. If an oak is wounded during this critical time, the DNR advises residents to cover the wound immediately with either a tree-wound paint or a latex paint to help keep the beetles away.

Once an oak is infected, the fungus moves to neighboring red oaks through root grafts. Oaks within approximately 100 feet of each other—depending on the size of the trees—have connected or grafted root systems. Left untreated, oak wilt will continue to move from tree to tree, progressively killing more red oaks over an increasingly larger area. These untreated pockets also serve as a source of inoculum for the overland spread of the disease.

To get more information on the background, symptoms and prevention of oak wilt, as well as other forest health issues, visit www.michigan.gov/foresthealth and take a look at the DNR’s 2012 Forest Health Highlights Report.

Filed Under: Clippings, Tree Tips Tagged With: disease, oak wilt, trees

Proper mulching is one of the best things you can do for your plants

September 2, 2011   •   

by Steve Turner

Mulching is one of the best things you can do for your plants if done right, but too much or improperly installed mulch can be a real problem.

The problem

The common practice of mounding mulch against the trunk has proven to be a fatal one for many trees. These often seen “mulch volcanoes” are perfect circles 8 to 10 inches thick piled against the trunk and are actually creating more problems than they are solving. What makes the problem worse is that many of these trees are on commercial properties under professional care, and this has helped create the false impression that this is the proper way to mulch trees. Homeowners see this and imitate the practice on their own trees. The neat, clean appearance it gives a landscape is appealing to many. In fact, I have had several customers over the years ask me if there is a mold they can buy to make these volcanoes on their own trees! So in our quest for a beautiful landscape we are unknowingly sacrificing the health of the trees in the long run.

Why does it harm trees?

The bark on the roots of a tree is much different from the bark on its trunk or branches; it is able to tolerate moisture as well as the lower oxygen levels in the soil. The above-ground portion of the tree, which starts at the root flares, has bark that contains tiny openings which are used to release gases and toxins from its system. On plants such as cherry trees or forsythia, these sites are easily seen as tiny white dots or dashes on the bark and are called lenticels. Because of this important function, a tree can’t tolerate soil or mulch placed above its root flares. The lack of air and the presence of excess moisture prevents natural respiration from the bark and causes a build up of gases and toxins in the bark tissue.

The damage

If soil or mulch disrupts the respiration of the bark, the tree will usually respond in one of two ways. On thin-barked, young trees or species with naturally thin bark, like beech or linden, this disruption causes cankers (wounds) on the trunk. These appear as areas of dead tissue and provide an opportunity for decay to enter the tree. Other species will react by sending out additional roots from the trunk. These roots often end up circling around the trunk and become girdling roots in the future. Researchers are now finding out that trees with girdling roots and excess soil and mulch build-up are much more prone to snapping off at the base in wind and ice storms. The longer the problem exists, the more damage occurs, and the chances of correcting it go down.

Note that all trees will not respond in the same way – species, age, and health all need to be considered when trying to evaluate the effects of past damage. Most willow trees, for example, are very adaptable to a change of grade and often will show no problems at all.

Can the problem be fixed?

If caught soon enough, it can be corrected and tree will recover. However, upon root crown inspection, if it is found that large cankers have formed and decay is present, or if the tree has developed extensive girdling roots, it might be wiser to remove and replace the tree than to attempt to save it. During the root crown inspection, arborists use a high pressure air device called an “air spade” to safely remove the excess soil and mulch without damaging the root system. Once the soil is removed, there is a clear view of the buried trunk and roots, the damage can be evaluated, and a decision made as to which roots to leave and which can be safely removed. It is very important not to remove too much too soon or the tree will be shocked. Sometimes the work will have to be done in stages over a couple of years.

Proper mulching

While it is common to see 4 to 6 inches of mulch around a tree, this is usually too much. I would suggest 2 to 3 inches placed in a ring around the tree with the center around the trunk empty, kind of like a doughnut. How wide to make the ring is up to you, but the farther the better. Trees don’t like to compete with lawns for nutrients and water, and the more mulched area you can give them, the better off they will be. Mulched trees have fewer problems than trees growing in lawns. Even a small, 2 to 3 foot ring can make a big difference. The mulch creates a more natural growing environment with its organic material breaking down and supporting vital soil microbes. Other benefits include increased moisture retention and cooler soil temperatures, both of which favor optimal root growth.

If done properly, mulch is a great asset to your landscape and aids your trees during summer drought periods by maintaining soil moisture. It also helps insulate the roots during the winter months, which allows them to remain active longer into the season.

Need to figure out how much mulch you need for your project? Try out the handy Michigan Gardener soil and much calculator.

Steve Turner, Certified Arborist, is from Arboricultural Services in Fenton, MI.

 

Filed Under: Tree Tips Tagged With: mulch volcanoes, mulching, roots, trees, trunk

When is the best time to prune trees and shrubs?

May 28, 2011   •   

by Steve Turner

I am often asked when is the best time and what should be pruned. The ideal time is when the tree is dormant, which is late fall to early spring. Since the tree is not active, the removal of limbs will be less stressful to the plant. It is also easier to see the structure of the tree without its leaves to better find problem areas like rubbing branches, weak crotches, cracked or broken limbs and competing leader branches. The tree will have more time to seal the wounds before the growing season starts and there will be less sap running from the wounds. Also, insect and disease organisms are not active at this time, so it reduces the risk of infection or pest infestation, which is why birches and American elms should only be pruned in the winter. The worst time to prune trees is late spring and early summer when their leaves are expanding and the tree is putting its energy toward growth.

A common myth is that large, mature trees can tolerate more pruning than small trees. In fact, the opposite is true. Only the outside inch or two of a tree is alive; the rest is made up of dead cells whose main function is to support the tree. That’s why a tree can be hollow but still be perfectly healthy. If you compare the percentage of live cells to dead cells between a small tree and mature tree, the difference is huge. A young tree might be made up of 90 to 100 percent live cells, while an old, mature tree might only have 10 percent or less. As you can imagine, the younger tree has a better chance to adjust to change.

A good rule for mature trees is that less is better. Try to avoid removing large limbs over 6 inches in diameter because it will be difficult for the tree to close the wound before decay sets in. Other options are cabling or thinning these large limbs as opposed to removing them. Good maintenance items for mature trees are removing deadwood and hazard limbs and thinning for weight reduction when necessary.

Young trees up to 8 to 12 inches in diameter need to be pruned properly for structure while they are still young to avoid the need to remove large limbs in the future. When pruning trees, keep in mind that the leaves produce the energy for the plant and that removing too much leaf surface from a tree or limb will starve the plant, causing die back or heavy sucker growth from that part of the tree.

“Topping” trees destroys them. They will never grow back to their natural shape and every branch that grows out of that wound area will be an accident waiting to happen. As the new limbs grow bigger and the rot in the wound increases, the branch will eventually break. A topped tree soon becomes a maintenance headache, with constant storm damage due to the weak branch attachment. If a tree is too large for its location, consider having it removed and replanted with a smaller species rather than topping it.

It is important to know what a tree’s natural shape will be when it matures before you prune it. For example, I see many weeping cherries that are pruned into a ball shape because all of the upright limbs were removed as they grew out of the top. If allowed to continue growing, these limbs would have eventually bent back down, creating the weeping effect that gives the tree its unique look. So it pays to do a little homework and find out what the tree’s natural shape is and help it reach its full potential. Not all ornamental trees need to be pruned into the traditional lollipop shape!

When it comes to shrubs, prune flowering shrubs soon after they are done blooming. Non-flowering shrubs and evergreens can be pruned as necessary to achieve a desired shape. Keep in mind that wider at the bottom is better than narrow — if you allow more sun to reach the bottom of the shrub, the plant won’t thin out as much. Avoid heavy, late summer pruning; too much pruning at this time will encourage new growth that may not harden off in time for winter. For those plants that don’t tolerate shearing well, like red or green twig dogwoods, it is best to prune them back to the ground when they become too large or sparse, and let them start over again by growing new limbs from the base.

Steve Turner, Certified Arborist, is from Arboricultural Services in Fenton, MI.

Filed Under: Tree Tips Tagged With: prune, pruning, shrubs, trees

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