Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with the University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. Pet peeves of trees. The things that when we see them, we just they crawl under our skin. We just can't help but say something to whoever's with us, and it's usually somebody who's heard it already or significant others or someone other coworker who's like, enough already.
Chris Enroth: 00:32But you know I'm not doing this by myself. I'm joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.
Ken Johnson: 00:39Hello, Chris. Hey. I think my wife and kids have kinda tuned me out now. They don't even listen to my rants anymore.
Chris Enroth: 00:44That's right. They they don't even pull over the car anymore when I say, pull over. I need to get a picture of that. They just say, you have plenty of pictures, and I do. Yes.
Chris Enroth: 00:55But you know we can't rant like this without horticulture educator Emily Swihart in Milan, Illinois. Emily, welcome back.
Emily Swihart: 01:04Thanks for having me. And, yes, this is gonna be a fun one because we will listen to each other when we are complaining. Yeah. The thousands and the kids and the friends have all tuned us out.
Chris Enroth: 01:17Yep. We're our our response is gonna be, I know. Like, you know, and it's it's not gonna be an annoyed face or look at us. But but An
Emily Swihart: 01:27eye roll.
Chris Enroth: 01:28Uh-huh. Exactly. So silent nod. Mhmm. Like, mhmm.
Chris Enroth: 01:33Yeah. Yep. You keep saying that every time we drive by that same tree. This is our last tremendous podcast for the month of April even though we're coming out on May 1 here. But right.
Chris Enroth: 01:46We're a day late, but that's
Ken Johnson: 01:47alright. April 31.
Chris Enroth: 01:51That's right. We made that one up for you. Oh.
Emily Swihart: 01:56Well and we just we could keep it going. We kinda bully Ken into this in the first place, and maybe this is our way of keeping it going.
Chris Enroth: 02:08Yep. Well, I think we should probably just dive right into the list because you know that we have been looking at trees for many, many years, and we got a couple things to say today. So I guess, Emily, kick us off with your first pet peeve when it comes to trees.
Emily Swihart: 02:28Okay. Gosh. This is okay. Where to start? First, we there's a lot that we see with the trees, and we might be kind of critical today with the care and maintenance of them.
Emily Swihart: 02:41It's out of a place of love. So I guess I'll just say that out of the gate, is that we are being critical of how trees are cared for, because we know the harm, or the damage, or the adverse health effects that it can have on the trees. And so we are doing this not to be critical of anybody maintaining trees, but it's a way of trying to stop these practices, because they do oftentimes lead to tree decline or just health challenges. So I wanted to get that out of the way. So then let's get into the complaining.
Emily Swihart: 03:12Let's start with codominant trunks that can be corrected. So this is an issue that I just it pains me to see because it can so easily be corrected. Some of these are a little more challenging to correct that we'll talk about. But codominant trunks or leaders is something that can be corrected. Know first, define well, we'll define co dominant leaders.
Emily Swihart: 03:36So this is when you've got two or more trunks that are of equal size fighting kind of for dominance in the canopy. Generally speaking, and there is a gray area here, because some trees don't love to have this single dominant form. I'm thinking of our vase shaped trees. So it's harder to force elms into having a single leader. But the principles of good branch structure still apply.
Emily Swihart: 04:07They just look different on those vase shaped trees. But a codominant stem is gonna be one that, generally speaking, goes from the ground all the way up to the high heavens. So if you can trace a trunk all the way kinda through the tree as the dominant trunk, it can zig. It can zag. Like, some trees, you know, might take a curve.
Emily Swihart: 04:27But generally, it's going to be reaching from the sky to the base without having another one that is equal dominance. The reason this is challenging for trees, in particular ones that do tend to have this form, is that when you have codominance, oftentimes as trees grow and age, they grow vertical, but they also grow in girth. The trunks will will gain size in a diameter. And so eventually, that narrow branch angle or that narrow crotch angle that those little trees have and I've got a picture I can insert that kind of shows the beginning stages of it and then the ending stages. But over time, they grow into each other and develop included bark.
Emily Swihart: 05:10So they just grow into each other, and that bark that was once on the outside of the tree becomes on the interior of the tree and can lead to a lot of health problems. I am particularly frustrated with this condition. I lost a beautiful it gorgeous Linden, because it had like five codominant leaders. And I'll put some pictures in here. You can just see where the rot went all the way through the tree, because in that crotch angle, there was just organic matter collecting and water collecting over the years.
Emily Swihart: 05:44And so it failed in a relatively normal Midwestern rainstorm. It wasn't anything, you know, overly powerful storm wise. It it just failed. So this frustrates me because it can be corrected.
Ken Johnson: 05:58Yeah. I've got a a maple tree in my backyard that we that came with the house. And I'm pretty sure that they've grown together. It's almost probably only two, three feet above the ground all the way up. Mhmm.
Ken Johnson: 06:10So I'm just waiting for that to I should probably do something about it. So I'm just waiting for that to rip itself apart.
Emily Swihart: 06:17Is there a target that it can fall on? I'm trying to remember.
Ken Johnson: 06:22Depends on how it falls. Maybe my garage.
Emily Swihart: 06:27Okay.
Chris Enroth: 06:28Lucky you. You get a new garage. Well, Emily, you said that these are things that can be corrected, and I think that ties into maybe my one of my pet peeves is sort of where they originate. Now I I usually get called after the fact the tree's been in the ground for, like, thirty years. And if they try to correct at that point, you leave, like, a huge wound.
Chris Enroth: 06:53And it's so I I'm always sort of, like, have a that's kinda when you have a certified arborist come out to see, like, is this gonna cause more harm than good by by making this correction at this age of the tree? But how they get that way is is sometimes, not all the time, is a nursery practice where they will tip the central leader in the nursery Yeah. That then encourages bushing out as it's growing still in the field or in a container or a pot. And I yeah. It it's something that I see routinely when I'm at some of the different nurseries around town.
Chris Enroth: 07:37Mostly the big box ones that are kinda pushing a lot of stock through their door. But it and it's something you also have to be kind of careful of because the other thing where you might see a lot of pruning cuts on nursery stock is the tree went through some drought damage, which then scorched all of the the growing tips. So if you I I would just say if you see a lot of pruning, I would say on the tips of of of your trees, you really wanna be cautious of selecting that particular one. Because, you know, whether it was drought or if they're just trying to make the tree look more bushy or more full so that you buy it, you could all of that excessive branching, that side branching could then lead to codominance trunks in the future. And and so just just be aware of that when you're selecting plant material.
Chris Enroth: 08:30And and we could correct this early on if we just know what to look for.
Emily Swihart: 08:37Yeah. Yep. It can be. I will say if you are purchasing a tree that has codominant leaders or has experience essentially topping of young trees, pruning off of that dominant leader. It can be hard to correct from an emotional standpoint because you are removing quite a bit of a part of the tree that you've paid for, good money for.
Emily Swihart: 09:05So I see a lot of people kind of hesitating. And it can be done over time, especially so we don't shock the tree, especially after transplant. But yeah, it's frustrating that it, you know, it turns up in the nursery industry. We kinda should know better and care for our trees better. But so it can be corrected.
Emily Swihart: 09:23So that's, you know, I guess one way of positively looking at it.
Chris Enroth: 09:29Yeah. Like and and that's not all nurseries that do this. No. You know, it kind of the thing you do you wanna see, like, a good strong central leader when you're purchasing that tree. A good singular dominant trunk going straight up with the shorter side branching.
Emily Swihart: 09:47Yep. And for those trees that are more vase shaped or more open canopy, you wanna see larger kind of a better shaped crotch angles. So, like, the challenge of the codominance is not that there's two of them fully, it's that they're so narrowly branched, that the angle at their meeting is so tight that they will eventually grow into each other. Larger trees, if you have a wider branch angle or crotch angle, they won't end up growing into each other. So 45 degrees to 90 degrees is kind of our guide, is what we're looking for.
Emily Swihart: 10:21So if you're buying an elm, which we do have hybrid elms that are appropriate for putting in the landscape now, those can have or like honey locusts will sometimes have that open canopy also. A wider crotch angle is gonna be what we're looking for instead of so narrowly angled. Ken, let's bring you. What are you
Ken Johnson: 10:47speaking of things
Emily Swihart: 10:47pet peeves.
Ken Johnson: 10:48Speaking of things that happen that we should know better about. Tree topping. There's some some trees in in Jacksonville I drive by frequently, and every time I see them, I start ranting and people tune me out. But, you know, I think this is one where I know people should maybe people should know better, but I think the tree trimming company should know better. This hasn't really ever it's ever been an accepted practice, but if it has if it wasn't one time and it hasn't been in a long time, and also just going through and kinda indiscriminately cutting out larger branches.
Ken Johnson: 11:21So you have these big stubs, then you get all these water sprouts that are weakly connected, and then it just you've you basically killed the tree, more or less. It's just a matter of time before you're gonna have to cut it down. It's one of those things you see, at least I see fairly frequently, more well, I wouldn't I would like not see it at all, but more frequently than I think we should see. Especially in Jacksonville, it seems to happen a lot. I think there's a couple companies that and I know there's companies that advertise tree topping.
Ken Johnson: 11:53So I think it's one of those things. If if people are looking for somebody to prune their trees, you know, I tell people if they tell you to top it, just flat out tell flat out tell people I do not want my trees topped. And if they, you know, they're advertising this or they try pushing you that way, look for somebody else even if it's more expensive because it's it's just gonna cause you more problems down the line because you have to clean up that topping because you get that real thick growth. So it's gonna be constant pruning. It's it's good business for the companies doing it because you're gonna have to come back and and have that continual maintenance on that stuff.
Ken Johnson: 12:25And so, yeah, that's I think that's my biggest pet peeve when it comes to to trees and their care is stopping.
Chris Enroth: 12:36I think there's only two times when it is acceptable to top your tree. The first time is in an emergency. So let's say a storm's come through, you have a lot of damaged twisted branches. If you have a company that's trying to get through a lot of work all at once, okay. They gotta make indiscriminate cuts kind of just get rid of the hazards.
Chris Enroth: 12:55That makes sense. But they're supposed to come back and and make proper pruning cuts when that when they when they can. The other one, I don't know if either of you have been in Europe before and seen the practice pollarding. That's not tree topping, though. That's totally different.
Chris Enroth: 13:14Yeah. That's the annual removal of the the epicormic shoots that are sprouting from that. So, yeah, that those are the only only two times where pollarding, I'd say tree topping in quotes, not not really tree topping. It's a totally different practice. But but only other time would be in an emergency situation when you have a a lot of trees that need to get corrected real quick.
Emily Swihart: 13:41Yeah. Yeah. Pullarting is not tree topping. That's a that's a cultural practice, and so that's really important to to note. But, yeah, I see tree topping happening too.
Emily Swihart: 13:50And the frustrating part is that this has been a practice. Some of our recommendations in the tree world don't have a lot of deep science to them. Research takes a long time. Funding is limited. So sometimes we're working off of limited, rigorous research.
Emily Swihart: 14:17This has been disproven. This is known as a practice. This is not recommended. And it has been known as I guess, tree malpractice, like abuse, meanness, for a long time, and yet it still occurs. And so yeah, I'm with you.
Emily Swihart: 14:34It's frustrating. Because you know the damage is being done, too. We know this is bad from a cultural practice. Like, we know it's not recommended from like a business practice, but then also, like, long term. It's like, oh, man.
Emily Swihart: 14:47You just like ruined a good perfectly good tree.
Ken Johnson: 14:50Yeah. I think that's most frustrating if these, like, big big, mature trees. Mhmm. All of sudden, you drive by one day and there's nothing left. And a lot of times they're doing this in the after the trees.
Ken Johnson: 15:01Not that any time is really good, but, you know, it's in the middle of the growing season. You just chopped everything off. And Yeah. Yeah. Just just keep going further down and and take the whole thing out.
Ken Johnson: 15:13Save yourself the time and frustration.
Chris Enroth: 15:17Yep.
Emily Swihart: 15:20Well Alright. Chris, this is fun. Just kind of venting, it's sad, but it's fun. So what do you got?
Chris Enroth: 15:31Yeah. Well, I I would say the the other thing is how people handle the growth, the vegetation at the base of their tree. You know? So what does extension recommend for managing maybe turf grass or weeds or whatever around the base of the tree, the tree ring? That's gonna be like a wood mulch typically.
Chris Enroth: 15:59And but it's what they put under the mulch that bugs me. And I see so many times it it I I drove by just the other day. I saw someone putting down not even landscape fabric, which still not great, but I'll that's more acceptable than just putting down a a sheet of plastic. Somebody had just gotten, like, some black drop cloth plastic from the hardware store, and I watched them installing it around their trees, and then they put mulch on top. Now plastic film is a physical barrier to both air and water flow from from from up up above ground down into the soil.
Chris Enroth: 16:42And not only does the soil need to breathe, the tree roots need to breathe. So we need we need good air exchange, and then we, of course, we also need water to flow down to the root system. And so we just we just know that having an impermeable layer is just not good for plant health. We use plastic to kill plants after all, like in the vegetable garden. Like, we'll put down a silage tarp to kill stuff.
Chris Enroth: 17:11But I still see this happen a lot. And then, you know, Emily, as you described the the ever increasing size of the trunk as it grows outward every single year, eventually, that trunk encounters that that plastic or that landscape fabric. And if you're not paying attention, it can wind up girdling or kind of strangling the base of the tree, and then you wind up killing your tree after, like, having it in the ground for ten years. So that that's definitely bugs me all the time. Have I ever walked past a tree where there's landscape fabric or plastic being strangling the trunk and cut it?
Chris Enroth: 17:51Maybe. Even if it wasn't on my property. I'm not gonna admit to that in the court of law, though. But I will say maybe saved a few trees in my past by doing that. Always get permission, folks, before you do any work in someone's yard.
Ken Johnson: 18:08So I've seen tarps, the blue tarps Mhmm. Around trees and under under rock mulch.
Chris Enroth: 18:14Yep. So
Emily Swihart: 18:16Well, and they also I mean, there's products that are made like this too. Those tree ring like, mulch rings Mhmm. I dare say are worse because they're thicker, you know, a harder material. I see those put on underneath mulch. I put I see them just put on and left on.
Emily Swihart: 18:34All of it. You know, just mulch. Just regular mulch, just like nature intended. You know? That's or mimic like, with mulch, you mimic the woodlands in which trees originated.
Emily Swihart: 18:44Right? Like, there's a lot of leaf material, you know, leaf debris, organic matter falling on the on the forest floor, that's kind of what we're trying to do in our landscape is to create an organic layer underneath the tree so that there can be that air and water exchange in those and create a more conducive growing condition for the roots where it's the soil is kept a little cooler. There's adequate moisture, you know, adequate aeration. And when we put plastic on it or put anything on it kind of besides an organic mulch, we can really alter that environment. So I see it, and I like it.
Emily Swihart: 19:21I also maybe not gonna admit to it fully, but have taken materials off of trees that aren't mine.
Chris Enroth: 19:29Mhmm.
Emily Swihart: 19:30The tree thanked you. Yeah. I know. I I don't feel bad about it. It's usually in public spaces, honestly, is where I do.
Emily Swihart: 19:37I've never gone on to private property. But in public spaces, you know, where maintenance you know, just having trees can be, you know, it's great, but also, like, the maintenance, the follow-up can be lacking because of all the other responsibilities. So as a citizen, I do that. The similar to it, but is the the wraps for, like, winter wraps, those, like, white tree tubes, the protections, like, those need to come off as well, and that sometimes is allowed to linger too long. And so as the tree grows, it can girdle it, or it can be adverse health or adverse conditions for the summer months because it gets so hot.
Emily Swihart: 20:15So all of it. Plastic and trees. Not excellent.
Chris Enroth: 20:20I say if you can keep plastic out of your landscape as much as possible, do it. Mhmm. We got enough of it floating around.
Emily Swihart: 20:28Yes. Yep. For sure. Oh, these are good ones. Alright.
Emily Swihart: 20:34Let's see. What what do I wanna go to? Well, I'm gonna go along kinda with that same vein of tree care, planting tree care, you know, like in the root systems and caring for them. And it also is a season for planting a lot of trees, and that's great, except this notion that you can leave burlap on a balding burlap tree frustrates me because while this is kind of where some imperfect science is or incomplete science remains, like we could still do studies, it doesn't look promising. Like, the notion that we can leave burlap on I've seen trees uprooted and have the and I'll put a picture in here.
Emily Swihart: 21:21Like, the entire root ball is just intact. The burlap did not decompose. Like is the argument for leaving burlap on the trees. And so I'll first say, when you're planting a balled burlap tree, usually these are really large field grown trees. They're heavy.
Emily Swihart: 21:36To get them from the field to the planting site, We wrap them in burlap and put usually a cage around them to maintain that root ball. That's really important. Like, we need to use, this method to maintain, the, soil around the root ball and make sure that it is intact when it gets to the planting site. Once the tree gets to the into the hole, we should be removing that burlap in that cage so that it does not inhibit root growth in the new planting site. Kind of the argument and the the pushback that I've heard is that burlap is a natural material, and it is.
Emily Swihart: 22:11It's derived from it's jute, would be the common name for the plant. It's a natural fiber. And I was doing some reading. I just was wanting to learn a little bit more about it. The way that it's processed, even the way the dewd is processed, can make it harder to decompose in a landscape.
Emily Swihart: 22:33Like, it is a really fibrous material that is useful because it doesn't decompose, because it stays dry, because it kind of repels water. And so when you put it into the ground, if you don't remove it, we think, oh, it's going to deteriorate because of the moist growing conditions. Well, if it's repelling water, it's maybe not going to be encouraging bacterial growth and decomposition of that. Also, to me, when I'm planting trees, it's a factor that I can control and promote root health in removing it. I want to take the gamble on whether it decomposes or not.
Emily Swihart: 23:16So I remove it. I always recommend removing it. There's also burlap that's treated, chemically treated, to slow down decomposition. So best case scenario, I've seen where burlap can decompose over three months. I don't think that that happens very often.
Emily Swihart: 23:35Up to a couple of years to decompose a natural burlap. Two years is I would like my tree roots to be establishing out into the the native soil before two years and give them the opportunity to do that. If it's treated, it can be decades, like this picture shows. So just not worth the risk. I wish we would stop just throwing trees on the ground and leaving the burlap wrapped around their trunks or the root balls.
Emily Swihart: 24:03Excuse me. It can interfere with the trunk, especially if that wire cage is up against it as a tree grows over time. It can interfere. So anyways, I'll stop.
Ken Johnson: 24:14So you're paying a lot of money for that tree.
Emily Swihart: 24:17Yeah.
Ken Johnson: 24:17You might as well do it right.
Emily Swihart: 24:20Yep.
Chris Enroth: 24:22I've probably shared this on the show before. But when I was lands was a landscaper, there was one time we did leave the cage and the burlap on, and that was on a commercial installation we were doing. And, basically, our project our supervisor said, this is the wrong tree for this site. The the plan was done by a landscape architect, and it was just too big of a tree for the little torture pit that they're gonna put it in. And he said, just leave the burlap and cage on because so when it's dead, it'll be easier to pull out of the ground.
Chris Enroth: 24:58So that's the it's the only time I've ever done that before.
Emily Swihart: 25:02Oh, gosh. That's yep. I mean, that's a pretty good reason, but also, could we engage with the client and talk to them about that?
Chris Enroth: 25:12It it would've required a change order, I guess, and they just didn't wanna deal with it. And they said they had gotten the maintenance contract with that commercial property anyway, so they're like, the tree's gonna die. When it's dead, we will just come in and put in a new tree more appropriate for the space. Yeah. I guess just avoiding the paperwork, I suppose.
Chris Enroth: 25:31But Sure. And make maybe, make a little bit more money on selling them a different tree in a few years.
Emily Swihart: 25:39Oh, yeah. I it should also be noted, though. Like, these trees are really big. And like you said, like, when you were installing it, like, lot of times, bald and burlaps are not being installed by volunteers or not being sold by homeowners. Like, usually, is a contractor that's installing them because they are so large that, like, with the tree topping, like, specifying, like, I do not want this practice done at this site.
Emily Swihart: 26:04That that can be also communicated when you're planting trees and if they're bald and burlap trees saying, like, I I want that burlap removed. Unfortunately, there's sometimes you need to also specify that, like, a plastic container, you know, like the growing container needs to be removed as well. I've seen where that's just stuck in the ground. Oh my gosh. I know.
Emily Swihart: 26:25Not a lot. I do see it more and hear kind of the argument more for burlap, but, yeah, we should just set those roots free to anchor the tree.
Ken Johnson: 26:37Alright. So my other one is, I guess, cutting down perfectly good trees. Not so I'll say, this has been several years ago. Had somebody come into the office who had sweet gum, and they wanna know how to get rid of the gumballs. And there is you can you know, there are chemicals you can apply, but you gotta get the timing perfect in order to prevent the gumball formulation.
Ken Johnson: 27:00I was, you know, telling them this and, like, oh, I don't wanna do that. I'm just gonna cut the trees down. And these were, like, two large, mature, no problems with them, you know, sweet gums. You know, they weren't from what I gathered, you know, they weren't too near the house. I mean, it was just they were kind of an annoyance, so they they cut them down.
Ken Johnson: 27:18So that's I know it's up to the individual, but for me, you know, cutting down a perfectly good mature tree that's not that's properly cited, it's not posing any hazards, it's not disease or damage or anything like that. I don't know. I think we should be leaving that stuff because it takes a long time for a tree to get that big. And the benefits that we've talked, so a week or two ago about, you know, the benefits of having these trees, I think far outweighs, the the temporary annoyance of of having to break up gumballs once or twice a year. But that's just me.
Chris Enroth: 27:55Ken, that's not just you. Been there, done that many times. I I would say I have recommended the removal of many trees over the years. Like, you know, this tree should needs to be cut down. Mhmm.
Chris Enroth: 28:08It is a hazard. There's a lot of targets nearby. But I've also advocated for preserving trees to people who just they're they're deaf to it. They don't wanna hear it. One of the main arguments is, oh, I don't like the the bur oak acorns that fall down.
Chris Enroth: 28:26It's you know, we don't we don't have to deal with them. Just had a property in Macomb. I mean, the next to a trailer park, this individual owned probably, like, half of a block, just empty. Used to be former trailer homes, I think, and there were these massive oaks growing on this half block, and you just didn't like them. Just didn't want them.
Chris Enroth: 28:51I don't even know if anything went to, like, a lumber yard for sale. I think it just all got chopped down. The tree board tried to get involved, but, I mean, they really can't say or or they don't there's no control there. It's up, again, to the property owner. It's the individual decisions.
Chris Enroth: 29:08But, I mean, I guess, Emily, what do we lose when we lose a mature tree that's healthy? What what is lost? Like, what resources?
Emily Swihart: 29:17Well, how much time do we want to spend on this?
Chris Enroth: 29:20Like, so
Emily Swihart: 29:21we talked we've hinted at it earlier in in earlier podcasts and, like, so much. I mean, we can go, like, ecologically. Tree canopies, especially really large ones, especially in the Quercus family, those oaks are ecosystems systems in and of themselves for the most part. We've got caterpillars and wildlife that is being supported. They are helping to take we don't do water management.
Emily Swihart: 29:50So tree canopies, from a stormwater standpoint, and we have had a bunch of storms lately, even though trees aren't all leafed out. Currently, they will intercept water. They act like a big umbrella, so you stand underneath trees. And then they're dry sometimes because that water is being caught up in that canopy, so they're intercepting it, never leaving having to manage it as a community. If it hits the ground, those root systems can absorb a lot of water, hundreds of gallons of water in some species cases where they're just like water hogs.
Emily Swihart: 30:25So that's water that we don't have just sitting in our soil or going into our storm sewers that we have to manage from a water treatment standpoint. Shade, I can't imagine how hot it would be in those places now without that shade there. You know, the energy savings and the comfort and and just value of of having a community where, like, people can be outside comfortably, can recreate, can enjoy the outdoor spaces. Conversely, even though there are oaks, like, the winter months, some of that wind interception you know, we think of windbreaks as being, you know, like evergreen, you know, lines of evergreens around rural farmsteads. Like, in urban environments, even just having, deciduous canopies intercepts and slows down some of that wind.
Emily Swihart: 31:11You can have some windbreak value to them, especially if there's a bunch of trees in our communities. Culturally, like, they're beloved. Right? Like, could go on and on. There's just such a huge loss when we when we lose, especially really large canopies.
Emily Swihart: 31:28That's why topping is so frustrating because we know that it's shortening the life of these really large trees. That's why indiscriminately taking out or or you know, taking out trees because we just don't like them or we don't wanna deal with one attribute of them is is really frustrating to people who understand the value of trees. So do want you me to keep going? I could keep going.
Chris Enroth: 31:50Yep. And I guess if people want to hear more mean, our first episode for this month, we dive into the benefits of trees, so we can always you can always check back at that episode.
Emily Swihart: 32:00Yeah. Yep. Oh, that's so heartbreaking that they took out all those trees. I've seen it too. I think everybody has probably seen it happen before.
Emily Swihart: 32:10You know? And there's not a lot you can do with private homeowners, you know, besides kind of developing a culture around trees. I do wish, and there's not a solution that I've heard of. I've been, you know, looking for it for many years. A lot of times we have programs that support tree planting and and maintenance, and we have volunteer groups that that do support trees on public spaces.
Emily Swihart: 32:32But we've mentioned it on here before, so many of our trees are privately owned and on private lands. And so I do wish there were more resources available for more resources. And I'm talking about professionals willing and able to help with those trees and resources financially to offset that cost, like to compensate them. Like, it is expensive to take care of some really large trees, especially if they need work done. And some people just can't afford it, and so it might just be easier to take out the tree.
Emily Swihart: 33:08There's a lot of reasons people come up with, but I do think that that's part of it, is we're not planting trees. We're not maintaining trees because of the cost, the financial cost of them. But the benefits, I I certainly would argue, outweigh those those financial costs. So I wish there were programs to help offset some of that. Yeah.
Chris Enroth: 33:26It's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We do get a lot of calls about that.
Chris Enroth: 33:32Like, does extension have any programs to help with paying for tree maintenance or or anything like that? And I'm sorry we we don't, and I'm not really aware of unless there's a local program specific to a person's area. I don't really know of a state dedicated program for that.
Emily Swihart: 33:49Yeah. Well, and the trees that provide us the most benefit are those really large trees, and we would ideally have a lot of really large trees. And unfortunately, those are also the ones that take a professional to do the work in. We need people who are trained in climbing or have the proper equipment to manage those trees instead of the amateur homeowner. And and I would include myself.
Emily Swihart: 34:16Like, I know a lot of I I don't know how to climb. I I wouldn't be up in a tree canopy, you know, doing doing that work. So
Chris Enroth: 34:22No. I would not do that. I I don't like to be in a tree with sharp implements.
Ken Johnson: 34:29No. Yeah. Excuse dumb ones then.
Chris Enroth: 34:36Still hurts if you land on them.
Emily Swihart: 34:41Oh, that was funny.
Chris Enroth: 34:44Pruning, Emily, what about, like, pruning cuts? And I don't know if you've ever we talked about topping, and I don't know if this is too close to that topic, but, like, I don't know, just flush cuts, stub cuts. Do you see a lot of that?
Emily Swihart: 35:01All the time. Like, it probably more often than I see proper pruning cuts, which is really frustrating. Yeah. So stub cuts is one of my I see those more. So this is when you would leave a portion of the branch.
Emily Swihart: 35:15Like, you don't make a proper pruning cut right outside of the branch bark collar, but you leave, like, a portion of the branch kind of attached to it. So it's like a nub or, like, it's just, like, you know, extra that should be removed. I don't see flush cuts, thank goodness, happen very often. So I think maybe the message has gotten out about flush cuts not being the recommended form of pruning. So that's when you just, like, slice, right down along the trunk.
Emily Swihart: 35:41Like, just goes straight down. That was once a practice, very common practice. I don't see that as often. But leaving portions of the branch attached doesn't help really either. So what happens is when there's extra branch material, the tree is not able to seal over that wound.
Emily Swihart: 36:03And so you're kind of leaving it potentially open to decay and infection because it's not able to seal itself. I or I have heard the argument that occasionally leaving a large portion of the branch can help slow down the progression of decay because decay doesn't move as fast towards it just delays the time until it gets to the trunk. I don't love that. I don't think that we should be recommending that. I'm just saying that there is some research and there is some inquiry about this is a method of slowing the progression of the decay, like buying yourself time.
Emily Swihart: 36:51The challenge with that is, though, that if you are doing that, if the branch is still living and you're kind of stub cutting it back over time and slowly reducing it, it's still growing in size. And we want to have our pruning cuts as small as possible so that they can seal over more quickly. So if you leave a branch and slowly kind of progressively prune it back, then it can just add size and take longer than to seal over once you make that final pruning cut. But, yeah, stubs are they're also dangerous. Like, I just have visions of people running into them or injuring themselves on this protrusion out of a tree.
Emily Swihart: 37:38A lot of times, it's because we're limbing them up, they're at eye level. Sub cuts, improper pruning cuts, kind of all of it. And I guess I don't think that it's overly complicated to make a proper pruning cut, and we've got resources available. Like, pretty I think definitely, like, amateurs could can make proper pruning cuts. Like, it's pretty easy to identify the branch bark collar once you know what it is and how do you preserve it.
Emily Swihart: 38:11The three point pruning method can be really useful on larger branches so you don't rip the bark, you can kind of preserve that that collar as well. So I guess if anybody has any questions about it, they certainly can reach out to extension.
Ken Johnson: 38:28So lesser of two evils, stubborn flush cut. Yeah. The big one. Which would you rather see?
Emily Swihart: 38:36Stub because we can correct it.
Ken Johnson: 38:40So all is not lost. There's a stub cut.
Emily Swihart: 38:42Correct. Yeah. You can go back. You just it's incomplete. So with I've mentioned the three part the three point pruning method.
Emily Swihart: 38:48So that you would use on, like, larger branches. And so the idea is that I'll try to describe it. I think I've got some pictures I can kinda insert here for YouTube where you can see the progression. But there's three cuts that you would make. So the first cut would be on the underside of the branch, about a foot or so outside of where you're going to be making your final pruning cut.
Emily Swihart: 39:10So out on the branch. You would cut up, like, on the underside of it approximately a third of the way through the branch to create a a stop. And then your second cut would be on the top of the branch outside of that first cut. So that's your second one. And what happens is the weight of the branch will rip, like will fall off.
Emily Swihart: 39:32It will cause the branch to fall. And so you've got that first cut to stop the ripping, to stop the bark ripping. And then the weight of the branch is alleviated, and then you can make your third and final pruning cut in a proper way outside of the branch bark collar with that reduced weight, and it's easier for you to handle. It's safer, and you don't have to worry about ripping the bark off of the tree and kind of creating a quasi flush cut of sorts. When you flush cut, you remove that branch bark collar, which has specialized cells in it, and that's what helps seal the tree over.
Emily Swihart: 40:05And so that's why we want to preserve that, is that when you remove that that's why you you can see some wound material develop sometimes. It's just not as efficient and and strong as when you actually let the tree use its its natural sealing ability to to seal over a wound. Was that the right answer, Ken, mister tree guy?
Ken Johnson: 40:30Yes. A plus.
Emily Swihart: 40:31Yeah. Thanks. I've actually never thought about that question, though, so that was a good one. But like I said, I fortunately don't see a lot of flush cuts. I see branch I see bark ripping.
Emily Swihart: 40:43That's frustrating, and I'll get calls about that where it's like, oh, you know, my any sort of of damage has occurred to the trunk of my tree, whether it's the bark ripping off of it or mower damage or, you know, animal rubbing or whatnot. What can I do? And the answer is not really anything. We don't recommend painting it. There's not a treatment we can put on it.
Emily Swihart: 41:09Hope that the damage isn't so extensive that it kills the tree or leads to really, really adverse health effects. And prevent it next time.
Chris Enroth: 41:20Well, this next one, Emily, I I would say I I I mentioned a lot. And this one is Emily's, but I let me just start off by saying
Emily Swihart: 41:30Go for it.
Chris Enroth: 41:31I will be driving down the car. I will turn to my wife, and and I'll just say, can't I'm gonna offend people with this. Can't people just plant something besides a maple tree? And I'll just be like, maple, maple, maple, maple. And it's this diversity of species.
Chris Enroth: 41:44It it Mhmm. It bugs me. And whenever you give someone a list of trees to to plant, it's like all the time they're gonna choose maple tree. Nothing nothing wrong with with maple trees. It's just we have so many of them, and I would just like to see a little bit more diversity.
Chris Enroth: 42:01But, Emily, you had another point about this. So not just in terms of species, but something else. What was your other point?
Emily Swihart: 42:09Yeah. I totally agree. We need a diversity of species, and that we all talk about that all the time, right? We need a lot of different types of trees in our landscape. I also like to remind people that we need a lot of different ages of trees in our landscape.
Emily Swihart: 42:23We need a diversity of ages. Because trees are living they eventually age out. We have pests. We have diseases. You have natural loss.
Emily Swihart: 42:35We have sometimes natural disaster induced loss, where we have some of the trees fail or get hit by ice damage, or whatnot. They're susceptible to different things. And so when we have a diversity of species, it's great because we're kind of hedging our bets against a pest or a disease that would maybe affect a certain genus of trees. But we also need different ages because when they naturally age out, we need those that come up. We just need the younger trees to be growing and filling in when the older trees age out or have to be removed for certain reasons so that we're not starting from zero.
Emily Swihart: 43:14Cause we don't get large mature trees overnight. We don't even get them in a decade. It takes multiple decades to get some of these really large trees in our landscape. And so we just finished Arbor Month here now, since this is coming out in the May. It's still a good time to plant trees.
Emily Swihart: 43:34We should be planting trees over and over and over. It's also nice for communities. So trees take maintenance. We've talked about that, like establishing trees. Once they've planted in the ground, you have to care for them, prune them, especially in the first, I would say, ten, fifteen years of their life, to really make sure that their form is strong, and they've established their root systems.
Emily Swihart: 43:58They are limbed up and ready to go into that next stage of life, like in a really good position to thrive. So those first years, like raising kids or taking care of pets, like puppies or kitties or whatever, there's an investment right up front, and you get to benefit from it later on. Trees are no different. So from a community forest standpoint, when our municipal workers and our budgets are caring for trees, planting a few trees each year or every so many years and caring for them well can help us spread out the resource of planting and maintaining. But then also, we can do a better job of getting those trees reared up well.
Emily Swihart: 44:46I don't think we talk about it enough either. Age and species diversity, please.
Ken Johnson: 44:54Yeah. It seems like usually all the trees in the neighborhood are all the same age, but they were all planted when the houses were built and nothing ever gets planted again.
Emily Swihart: 45:05Yep. And we don't preserve those older ones too. You know, like, that's part of getting a diversity of of tree species. I see a lot of, you know, new construction happening where they've removed the trees along the riparian area, just because actually, don't even know why. Question why.
Emily Swihart: 45:26Why they're doing it. Aesthetics, maybe. I don't know if it's ease of access. Like, it's certainly usually not because they're in the way of development or in the way of anything, but we we kind of take out those trees that are already middle aged or or older in terms of tree life. And then we try to put in these new little trees that are probably ill placed, that are on compacted soils, that are just not gonna end up being a solid replacement in the near future or even long term.
Chris Enroth: 46:03Well, we have given our our pet peeves, and I'm sure that there are more that we can discuss. But and we've we've spread in some proper practices throughout this entire conversation. But Arbor month is over. Do we have any resources that we could recommend if people want to keep learning more about proper tree care and maintenance?
Emily Swihart: 46:30Oh, do we, Chris? Yeah. So throughout extension, anybody in Illinois, in Iowa, in Missouri, and all the states have access to extension services. So your local extension is going to be kind of your first contact. You're absolutely welcome to reach out to your local extension agents.
Emily Swihart: 46:53In Illinois, we have developed and Chris, you're part of the team, and Ken, you are a new member of the team, and I'm excited The Community Tree Care team, so we have a webinar series that we host, and then we have on the ground events that we're hosting throughout Illinois to try to help provide access to the most recent and recommended maintenance, planting, care recommendations. And so go ahead and reach out and look for that with Illinois Extension. We also are developing a website. It's not ready quite yet. It's coming.
Emily Swihart: 47:29But we've got a lot of resources. Our blog, we write about trees a lot on the blog. We have some colleagues that write blogs about trees. We're a very pro tree team here at Illinois Extension. And so go ahead and reach out.
Emily Swihart: 47:46There's also Morton Arboretum is a really wonderful resource we have in Illinois who's doing research and has a lot of good information, and it's fun to visit. So I would say plan a trip to go visit any arboretum nearby. What am I forgetting? There's so much. Books.
Emily Swihart: 48:04There's tons of really great book resources. You know?
Ken Johnson: 48:07Under the Canopy.
Chris Enroth: 48:09Just send me your mailing address, and I will send you a mailing the canopy. I might send you five. We've boxes of those. Yeah.
Emily Swihart: 48:16Yeah. Is Under the Canopy, Ken, for those that don't know?
Ken Johnson: 48:21It is a pamphlet that folds out into a big poster. So it gives you tree recommendations for Illinois, proper how to properly site a tree, how to properly plant it. I think it gets into some maintenance too. A lot of it's more the kind of initial planting and stuff, but it it makes a nice poster if nothing else. It's got pretty pictures of trees on it.
Ken Johnson: 48:41Yeah.
Chris Enroth: 48:43And everyone's so mad at me for ordering tens of thousands of them. I'm sorry. But they said they were never gonna print them again. So and we had a USDA grant to fund it all.
Emily Swihart: 48:55It's a great resource. You do joke about having so many of them. I do recommend folks writing in if they if you're interested. They're really great for classrooms, for nurseries to hang on the wall. I've got, you know, mine in a poster frame over here.
Emily Swihart: 49:10You know, anybody and, yeah, anybody who's interested in trees, think beyond just, like, my house, you know, or your house. Like, put them in an office. Put them everywhere.
Ken Johnson: 49:21Everywhere. And extension office has got them. I don't if everybody still has them left.
Emily Swihart: 49:25But Mhmm.
Ken Johnson: 49:27Contact local extension repress.
Chris Enroth: 49:29I got plenty. Well, that was a lot of great information about some of our tree pet peeves as we close out this April month. And plus, we will leave links to those resources where you can check things out. And and I am serious. Our emails are down below.
Chris Enroth: 49:50Email us. Don't put it in the comments, your address, but I I will happily send you a paper copy of the Under the Canopy, but you have to email me. Please don't put it down below. Don't comment your address. We don't want that.
Chris Enroth: 50:04We'll have to delete that. Well, the Good Growing podcast is production of University of Illinois Extension edited this week by Emily Swihart Emily, thanks for hanging out with us and and taking a crack at the the editing this week. We appreciate it.
Emily Swihart: 50:23Oh, I think it's my pleasure. We'll see how the editing goes. But, no. It's been wonderful to talk trees, and we'll keep keep talking trees sporadically. Maybe not in such a condensed form for a month.
Emily Swihart: 50:36But, no. I hope it was useful to folks, and I hope happy Arbor Arbor month for everybody.
Chris Enroth: 50:42Happy Arbor month. Happy Arbor Month, Ken. Thanks you thanks to you too.
Ken Johnson: 50:47Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Emily, for editing. Think you're you're you're no longer a Padawan. You're now a Jedi Knight.
Chris Enroth: 50:56Woah. Me. I have to make her a Jedi Knight because you saw what happened when they didn't do it to Anakin. Right? Like, he went crazy and Sith came back.
Chris Enroth: 51:04So don't want that to happen. Emily's like, what are you talking about?
Emily Swihart: 51:09You two are such nerds, and I love it. Love it.
Ken Johnson: 51:13And thank you, Chris. And, miss, all of us, let's do this again next week.
Chris Enroth: 51:19Oh, we shall do this again next week. We are going back to the National Garden Bureau's plant of the year. And so we're gonna wean off of trees, but we're gonna talk about a shrub, the azalea, the the National Garden Bureau's shrub of the year. So we look forward to that. Well, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, and that is listening.
Chris Enroth: 51:38Or if you watch this on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing. University of Illinois Extension.