Tag: trees

Tree Staking

I recently visited a friends house and she had a question on tree staking. I’ve gone back and edited this post, first published four years ago. 

Recently, as part of my work at a public garden, I planted several bareroot trees. The trees are doing quite well, but several were leaning, and not quite supporting themselves. This called for tree staking.

Tree staking is often incorrectly done. First of all, you only need to stake a tree if it needs it. Some of my trees would have toppled over or grown at forty five degree angles if I had done nothing to fix it. There were several other trees that I left. The trees were growing relatively straight and supporting themselves. No staking required, even though they were just barely planted.

There are also quite a few common mistakes made. First, the tree should be able to move around a bit. If it can move with the wind, it will grow a stronger, healthier trunk. Second, the material around the trunk should not rub and constrict the bark. With this in mine, I developed a cheap, easy method to stake a tree.

Materials:

  • Bike tube
  • Post
  • twine

I took the bike tube, and cut off about a six inch section, and then split it so it was no longer a tube. I then cut holes on either end, put it around the tree, and threaded the twine through. I placed the post opposite the lean or instability of the trees. Tie the twine on the post, and that’s all. I only did one post per tree, and it worked great. Two posts might be needed in windy areas.

Here’s a picture of how it looked when it was done:

tree stakes

You could use a fancier post or twine to make it look nicer. One last very important reminder: remove it in a year. I have tree die because people leave the staking on. This poor tree isn’t going to last long:

tree stake bad

Woody Plants

2 Comments

I’m trying to get up on my knowledge of woody plants in the area. I pulled out my woody plant book, which is Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs. I crossed an invisible line in my travels. Most trees and shrubs I see are not in this book. I needed the companion book: Dirr’s Trees and Shrubs for Warm Climates. I proceeded to check it out from the library. So far I’ve made it through the introduction and looked up one plant.  The intro was very fascinating to me since it’s about Dirr’s Georgia garden, and I’m now in the same area. I found out the botanical name for a crape myrtle (it’s …Lagerstroemia). I had no idea before, even though crape myrtles are nearly as common as bark mulch.  I managed to get a horticulture degree without learning any plants that are used in warmer climates. Now I’m able to happily increase my knowledge.

A library copy of this kind of book will prove to be insufficient, but I’ve wanted to buy this book for a while. However, recently they released the new Dirr’s Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs.
I could go ahead and buy both, but it appears that the new book is mostly a compilation of the previous two Dirr woody books. This makes a lot of sense in my mind, and here’s why:

The invisible line in Dirr’s two book was going from a zone six to a zone seven. There’s no reason really to divide the zones like this, so I’m happy to see that they combined the books. I’m only half a zone apart from where I moved from: a 7b to a 7a. I’m wondering if things like a loropetalum wouldn’t grow well in many Utah landscapes: at a zone seven they are supposed to be cold hardy.  But I’m also still not sold that going off and planting a myriad of zone seven plants is wise. Like I said in this post I’ve seen winter damage on zone 5/6 plants.

There are other factors going on too. Like rhododendrons and azaleas still don’t make it far past garden center shelves before suffering a quick death due to alkaline soils. (Why they are on garden center shelves is beyond me. I once tried to convince someone in a hardware store they really didn’t want to buy that azalea…it would shortly die. It didn’t go over so well since I was just buying screws, and the associate in the garden center thought it was a good choice. I have yet to see an established azalea in a Utah landscape…)  Not only are winters more mild in Georgia, but acidity and humidity play a huge role in the plant pallet.

The native plant pallet that should be drawn upon and used frequently will be different as well. I also believe in regional gardening…Georgia is a great place for woodland gardens. Utah (at least to me) caters to dry desert and mountain alpines. So when I’m done in Georgia I might have a whole new list of landscape plants…but I’m not necessarily in a hurry to go ahead and plant them in Utah.

But I really do need to go and buy that new Dirr book, one way or the other.

Tree Staking

I went to a park up in Ceder Hills (the park was really neat with a triple story playground). While there I noticed a gorgeous tree with a trunk that looked like this:

This is after I attacked the girdling wire with a pair of hand pruners. The tree was not badly staked to begin with, but that was years ago. They did cover the wires, but the material they used has degraded, and the wire has started to grow into the tree. Without intervention, the tree will be girdled and die. Unfortunetly this is pretty common.

I wrote about tree staking a while ago, and how I staked a few trees that needed staking. If you go and look, it is very different than what you normally see. The most common mistakes made with tree staking is:

  • Staking too often: Many trees simply don’t need staking. A tree should only be staked if it is wobbly or tilting to one side.
  • Staking too tightly: When finished the tree should still be able to move about, just prevented from tilting too far in one direction.
  • Leaving it on too long: Staking material should always be removed after the first year. That’s the main problem behind the staking job above.

I contacted the parks department and they at least said they send someone out to see if the trees are properly staked. The trees actually shouldn’t be staked at all anymore–but hopefully the problem will get fixed. Better than my pair of hand pruners did.

The Art of Pruning

Learning how to prune is very scientific. My first experience with pruning is going out with my dad to the ancient orchard out back. He told me some basic rules, like make sure you cut on an angle above the bud and get rid of all the water sprouts, or branches that go straight up. In high school I went to a pruning demo a neighbor put on. I actually read the extension bullietin on pruning around that time too (and it’s long). It was one of the first skilled horticultural tasks I learned how to do.

In college the education continued in fruit production class, and with my internship at the Extension office. But one of the most unexpected places I learned to prune was Environmental Plant Pathology. We didn’t talk at all about pruning. But I learned how plants grow, and most of all how they utilize sunlight.

Here’s the interesting thing about plants. Most all of the sunlight is captured in the first layer of leaves. Those leaves underneath get a measly percentage of sunlight to try and do something with. That first layer is where all the photosynthesizing and productivity goes on. So when I prune, I try to imagine my tree having a single layer of leaves. I don’t want the leaves to be layer too much, but I also don’t want any holes. And I try and remember the sun moves and changes angles as well, so it’s not just from a top view that I want that layer of leaves.

The trees I’ve usually dealt with are old and ill-trained. Training systems makes the whole above goal a lot more attainable. Last year I finally went through my parents orchard (very old and ill-trained one, and becoming increasingly overgrown) and thinned out the trees, trying to get them a little more on track. I was worried this would just result in a mess of water sprouts this year, but I’m finding out that its not that bad. I went out for the first time while visiting last weekend and started tackling the trees. Since they are thinned out, there’s just less wood to prune. I wish I would have done it ages ago instead of pruning too many small branches for years.

The rules of pruning are scientific and based on plant growth. But when I prune I feel like I am an artist. I cut and shape the tree to just where I want it. I see some pruning jobs that are straightforward (just lop off everything growing straight up and  you are done), but for me every cut is a decision. Will this help my overall goal for the tree?  Will it help it produce fruit? In some ways the old trees are more fun this way. There’s usually lots going on, a lot to correct and not a very straightforward way to do it. So it turns into art for me.

It is fun this time of year to be able to enjoy warm winter weather and get out in the garden. Maybe that is why I love pruning so much: it’s the first garden task of the season when I can get out and do something with plants after a long boring break. It’s also the the first garden task I learned how to do right, and the first one I felt I was good at. It’s transformed for me from a chore to a science to an incredible art form.

*For more information on pruning go here.

I want this tree

4 Comments


This is a Golden Variegated Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus ‘Areo Variegata’) I was unaware that pines could be variegated. The effect of the variegation is stunning. I found this tree on a recent visit to the Utah Botanical Center, over at the Varga Arboretum. It wasn’t the only tree I was impressed with.

I have long loved Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum), but this variety ‘Cascade Falls’ makes it easy to fit in a residential landscape. Bald cypress is a swamp tree–and yet here it is growing in a water-wise arboretum. Highly adaptive and quite unique. This tree is actually deciduous–it will turn red and lose its needles in the fall.

Many times in my visit I found I knew the species tree, but not the cultivar. The cultivar was what impresses and I began to realized that I need to learn cultivars not just species. But oh what a daunting task that is.

This is Diablo ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Diablo’). It’s not an uncommon shrub–but I’ve never seen it pruned up to tree form, exposing exfoliating bark. I was unaware this shrub had such beautiful bark.

This is Lacebark Pine (Pinus bungeana). A more open pine, but that allows a clear view of the bark. This would be great in the winter, or any season for that matter.

The Varga Arboretum is still under construction. I almost didn’t find a way in–but it was worth it when I did. When I worked at the UBC, I wasn’t even too aware of it’s existence (although at that time it was more a holding place for trees, not somewhere to visit). It has well labeled trees that give the botanical and common name, the year it was planted, and water use. They have unique trees, but some more common ones as well. It’s a great place to go and look for trees to use in your landscape.

One final tree. I would never plant this, but it made me laugh. This is Weeping Treadleaf Arborviatae (Thuja occidentalis ‘Filiformis’)

It’s the Cousin It of trees.

*Side note: anyone know of a good place to order bulbs?