So let’s see here…someone planted a nice little Japanese maple outside a hotel, and everyone was happy. Then an elm started to grow next to it, and it looked pretty good. In fact, it looked better than the maple. So, what the heck? Let the elm grow and ignore the maple. And now….At what point do you decide which tree to sacrifice so that the other can live a reasonably healthy life? (Yes, there is a correct answer!)… Continue reading this article “Is it an Elmaple!”
Tag: woody
A scary Halloween story
Those of you that have followed the blog for a while know that poor tree planting is one of my pet peeves. It drives me crazy to watch tree installers use backhoes to gouge out gigantic holes and then drop in the intact root ball, clay, burlap, twine and all. But this dig-and-dump method (or “cost effective practice” according to installers) of installing trees often dooms them (the trees, not the installers) to a slow and ugly death.… Continue reading this article “A scary Halloween story”
What’s wrong with my pine tree…? Nothing!
Every once in a while in this line of work we’re actually able to give a homeowner some good news about their trees. A case in point is a call that we frequently get this time of year that starts like this: “My pine tree looks like it’s dying! It’s dropping all of its needles!” If the caller has access to the internet and a digital camera I usually request that the send me a couple of photos; if not, I ask them whether the tree is shedding needles along the outermost part of the limbs or on the interior.… Continue reading this article “What’s wrong with my pine tree…? Nothing!”
Walnut warfare
Recently, a question about using black walnut chips for mulch was posted on our Garden Professors Facebook group page. As gardeners know, black walnut has a reputation as a chemical warfare species that will kill anything growing underneath it – a phenomenon called allelopathy. So it’s logical to wonder about the lethality of walnut chip mulches.
To get a good feel for the science behind black walnut’s allelopathic abilities, I was fortunate to find a relatively recent review on the topic (Willis, R.J.… Continue reading this article “Walnut warfare”
Feel the burn…
One of the most obvious impacts of this winter’s winter is rapidly becoming apparent in Michigan and other parts of the Midwest: winter burn on conifers. The primary symptom of winter burn is needle browning, especially on evergreen conifers in exposed locations. Needles may be damaged by extreme cold or the browning may be associated with winter desiccation as needles lose moisture during brief warm-ups. Winter burn is one of those situations that draws a lot of attention because it can look devastating; yet it often has relatively little long-term impact on plants.… Continue reading this article “Feel the burn…”
Bert, I’ll see your SOME-DED-TREES with POOR-DEAD-TREES
Bert’s done some nice posts on his SOcialME DesignED TREE transplant Study (or SOME DED TREES). I’m going to add to the discussion with a new addition to my Preventing Optimization Of Roots DecrEAseD TREE Survival (or POOR DEAD TREES) series.
It took a while, but the prediction I made in 2010 has come true. You’ll have to look at the link to see the whole story, but the bottom line is that this tree lasted only 7 years before succumbing to poor planting practices.… Continue reading this article “Bert, I’ll see your SOME-DED-TREES with POOR-DEAD-TREES”
California here we come…
Linda and I are in Sacramento this week for the National eXtension Conference. I will be presenting later in the week on the work that we have done on the SOME-DED-TREES project. More on that in later posts. In the meantime, here are some photos from the State Capitol Park here in Sacramento. If you are ever in the area, I encourage you to check it out since the Park also doubles as an arboretum. The combination of mild winter temperatures and irrigation allows for as wide an array of trees as you are likely to see on one location.… Continue reading this article “California here we come…”
It came from the blog… The return of SOME-DED-TREES
Things have been going fast and furious here since the start of the year. We still have a few days left in February and I’ve already logged 13 talks in five states. Nevertheless, I’ve manage to find a little time to crunch some data on SOME-DED-TREES. For the uninitiated, SOME-DED-TREES is the acronym for the Social Media Designed Tree Transplant Study. The project was an opportunity for Garden Professor blog readers to participate in the design of a landscape horticulture research project.… Continue reading this article “It came from the blog… The return of SOME-DED-TREES”
The Ice-pocalypse of 2013: Winners and losers
Power has been restored to most of the nearly 600,000 people in Michigan that lost electricity during the ice storm that hit last weekend. The storm coated trees with an ice coating an inch thick in many locations, resulting in widespread tree damage. Exceptional events such as this remarkable ice storm provide numerous opportunities to make some observations about trees and how there were impacted by the event. Here are some notes based on observing trees near my home in DeWitt, MI and driving around Lansing, East Lansing, and the MSU campus.… Continue reading this article “The Ice-pocalypse of 2013: Winners and losers”
The ins and outs of trunk injection
I am serving on a Ph.D. committee for a student working in Entomology and Plant Pathology who is defending his dissertation tomorrow morning. I’m taking a break from trying to plow through the longest dissertation in history: A 465 page tome on the use of trunk injection in tree fruit crops. A lot to wade through but a fascinating topic. Trunk injection, of course, is not a new topic. Some of the earliest references to injecting compounds into trees date back to Leonardo daVinci, who also suggested the ‘pipe model’ theory of tree architecture; the notion that total cross-sectional area of a tree is constant as you move up to higher and higher levels of branching.… Continue reading this article “The ins and outs of trunk injection”