Trimming Tree Again a Week Later
Summer's the incorrect time to exist trimming trees Rich in Fairfax Station writes, "I aid a neighbor lady who has…
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Summer's the incorrect fourth dimension to be trimming trees
Rich in Fairfax Station writes, "I help a neighbor lady who has a large River Birch that's very close to her front door. She wants to remove some branches that are beginning to have an impact on her access. They are not small-scale branches. When is a good time to remove them, and how should we seal the cuts to prevent disease from entering the tree?"
Y'all are very wise to ask before cutting, Rich — from now through the beginning of winter is the worst possible fourth dimension to remove healthy branches from a tree, especially one as magnificent as a river birch! Pruning during the growing flavour always stimulates new growth. During summer'south heat, having to produce that ill-timed new flush of growth profoundly stresses a tree.
Pruning in the autumn is even worse equally information technology prevents the tree from going into a natural dormancy.
The exception is heavily damaged, disease or dead wood. Those beat-up branches can — and should — be removed at any time. Only removal of healthy limbs should simply be done in the centre of wintertime — the dormant period when the tree is essentially asleep — or in the spring when the tree has but begun actively growing again and new growth is forming naturally.
Warning: If you try to remove a 100-pound co-operative all in one piece, it will swing around, smack y'all upside the head and break your shoelaces. It volition besides tear the bawl directly below that branch section all the way to the footing. That's why large branches should always be removed in manageable sections — a foot or so at a time.
When you are gear up to make the terminal cut closest to the tree, locate the co-operative collar — the round structure were the branch meets the tree. You want to leave that collar on the tree when y'all remove the last of the branch. Don't cut flush to the trunk.
Naught should be used to seal the cuts. Nature knows how to do that much better than nosotros do.
"I am shocked, shocked, to find mushrooms on wood mulch!"
Vicki and Danny in Rockville write, "All of a sudden we are having a huge trouble with mushrooms around our shrubs, hostas, lilies and other plantings. The surface area is hardwood-mulched every year. Yes, we know that y'all say it'due south bad, merely we've washed it for 15 years and this is the showtime fourth dimension we take had a mushroom invasion. Is there annihilation we can utilize to eliminate them? The scene out there is horrible!"
Then, allow's see … you knew it was bad to employ wood mulch, you kept using wood mulch anyway, something bad finally happened and now you're surprised? The truth is that anybody who falls for woods mulch marketing volition eventually get hit with a flush of mushrooms and/or other nuisance molds — some of which tin cause severe (and expensive) cosmetic damage to homes and cars. Some people get hit with such problems the very first twelvemonth they spread wood mulch, others get away with it for a decade or more. But sooner or later, the chickens — eh — fungal spores — will come home to roost.
For now, yous can try spreading java grounds, lime or woods ash around the 'shrooms to cease the spawning. Don't yank them out. That spreads the spores.
Coffee grounds supply nitrogen, while lime and woods ash brand the mulch more alkaline — both of which aid inhibit fungal growth. Merely don't apply both — choose either grounds or wood ash/lime.
And of form, the long term answer is to switch to a mulch that isn't attractive to rogue fungus such every bit compost, pine straw or pine fines.
Wood mulch = worms (but non the good kind)
Dwight in Randallstown writes, "I recently changed my mulch to wood and now bugs accept appeared; what are they and what should I practise?"
The images Dwight sent prove a severe infestation of bagworms on an evergreen. These clever caterpillars (every pest with the word "worm" in its mutual name is actually a caterpillar of some kind) live in small nests — or "bags" — that look a lot like the pine cones that naturally announced on the plants they attack. And then the "worms" often escape detection — sometimes even while they're eating the evergreen to the basis.
Bagworms — and similar pests such as tent caterpillars and fall webworms — often announced in response to stress such as feeding with chemic fertilizers or — ahem — mulching with chipped-upwards pallets from Cathay spray painted some God-atrocious color.
The initial respond to any caterpillar problem is to spray Bt on the found. Sold under brand names such as Dipel, Thuracide and Green Stride, this organic pesticide fabricated from a naturally occurring soil bacteria only affects caterpillars that consume the sprayed parts of the institute. Bt harms cipher else. The "worms" will stop eating immediately and dice shortly subsequently.
In the long term, avoid using chemically-based plant foods and cease using mulches that stress your plants. Switch to compost or pine straw. A good for you, happy plant rarely suffers these kinds of attacks.
Rubber baby buggy mulch
When I sent Dwight in Randallstown my email advising him to get rid of the wood mulch that had made his plants and so attractive to bagworms, his answer — and I could not brand this up — was "Okay — so my next step is to become to blackness rubber mulch?"
Oy! I should take listened to my mother and taken that job in the fish canning factory back when I was 15!
No, no, no, Dwight. Black rubber mulch is fabricated from chipped-up old car tires. It's potentially toxic, a definite fire hazard and definitely stinks in the summer oestrus. End letting people with waste disposal issues use your landscape as a landfill, and switch to a mulch that prevents weeds without nasty side effects, similar compost, pine harbinger or pino fines.
Artichokes: Allow George practise information technology!
John in Shush emailed me to say, "I have artichoke bushes that have gone through two winters now. They are very salubrious looking and growing well, just I tin can't seem to get them to produce actual artichokes. Any suggestions?"
I replied, "I realize that this is a punch line, but: 'Gee, mister — I didn't know that artichokes grew in Virginia!' (ba-dump-bump; rimshot)".
John countered with, "you encounter artichokes all over Mt. Vernon; that's where I bought my seedlings."
This is a smashing lesson in what experts can practise when they accept greenhouses, common cold frames, hired help and lots of knowledge, John. Non to mention that Washington himself was immensely talented at getting plants to thrive outside their normal range. In other words, although artichokes can technically be grown in the mid-Atlantic, it is a laborious and involved 2-year process that requires constant attending. Information technology is not a "plant it and forget it" project.
I suggested that he contact the gardeners at Mt. Vernon to see what kind of tricks and techniques they utilize, as their advice would jibe perfectly with his ain microclimate. Also, I sent him this commodity from the Connecticut Agronomics Extension Service that provides some solid communication on how to try growing artichokes exterior of their normal range and an commodity I wrote on the topic for my Public Radio bear witness some years back.
Only, as I say in that article, there'due south a darn skillful reason that nigh all American artichokes are grown in a single canton in Southern California.
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Source: https://wtop.com/garden-plot/2015/08/garden-plot-wrong-time-trim-trees/
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