Borers are killing ashes, Indiana is banning some walnut products to protect black walnuts, and a fungus is rotting out oaks.
It seems as if every time you turn around, there is more bad news for trees.
Dirt Cottage has a dozen oaks, and I love the cathedral canopy that says “welcome home” each time I turn onto the streets of my neighborhood on Fort Wayne’s south side.
The trees are old, venerable and save a lot on air-conditioning bills.
Sure, I worry that they’ll flatten the house the next time a tornado blows through town or that the next big ice storm will take out a limb big enough to crush the car.
But trees are so good in so many ways that a little worry is worth the tradeoffs.
Trees make places look better; they filter out bad things in the air; they conserve water; and they give nuthatches, squirrels and tree frogs a place to hang out.
Most of my trees are so big, I simply garden around them. I haven’t given a lot of thought about ways that I help them the way I help hostas, ornamental trees and other plants that are on a smaller scale.
The International Society of Arboriculture website, www.treesaregood.com, and others offer advice on how to keep older trees healthy.
Here are a few ideas:
•Mulch should be 2 to 4 inches deep, preferably as wide as the entire root system. The society said this might be two or three times the diameter of the branch spread. Don’t touch the actual tree with mulch or you’ll get rot.
At Dirt Cottage, I don’t rake up leaves that fall in the perennial beds. In fact, I use the mulching mower and blow the leaves in the directions of the beds.
•Before you fertilize your lawn, make sure you don’t pick a fertilizer that contains weed and feed formulations that might be harmful to nearby trees. Try to keep broadleaf herbicides as far as possible from the tree roots, at least beyond the drip line (the branch spread).
•Have a certified arborist or other tree professional check out your big babies periodically.
Trimming massive limbs is not for amateurs, and pros are more likely than weekend gardeners to catch a pest before it becomes a killer.
•If a big tree is in really bad shape or looming over the house, consider hiring someone to remove it. It hurts – I had to do it – but it hurts a lot less than finding a gaping hole in the roof.
•Include a variety of trees.
At Dirt Cottage, I’ve been adding one understory tree each year – native redbuds, mostly, and a dogwood or two. They will never grow really tall, but the more healthy trees of different kinds the less likely it is that a bug, fungus or other catastrophe will wipe out everything in sight.
