Farmers Weekly Review

Well, Mother Nature certainly is having her ups and downs, and as I write this, most of Will County is cleaning up from one, actually two, wild weather days and nights.

But since our columns are due a week before publication, you are reading this a week after the straight-line winds, derecho, and multiple spin up mini tornadoes. So why now?

You are probably thinking, “We already chain sawed, pruned, ripped out and cut down everything we needed to.”

But there are many considerations related to the aftermath of losing parts of or whole trees.

Many of these questions are rarely asked, but are important to know.

First, if you lost an entire tree, like the photo of this beautiful mature maple torn right out of the ground by nature’s wrath (actually just high straight-line winds, but who doesn’t like to personify bad weather), the number one question people should ask me is “Can I plant a new tree in that hole?”

No.

Even if you have the trunk of that tree totally ground out below soil level, AND you remove as much of that wood mulch as possible, you still will have significant decomposition for the next year or so.

Why does this matter? Because planting a new tree in that exact spot will continue to sink, too.

Trees have an imaginary golden line — where the seed becomes a root (down) and a shoot (up). This precious area should always remain where the trunk flare remains above ground. If you look at oaks and maples, especially very mature ones, you can see that wide flare.

Now take a drive and look at most parkway trees — they look like phone poles at the ground. Their flare is buried. What would be the base of the bark of the tree, also buried. Ripe for rotting away or chewing by small animals. Eventually, years down the road, that tree can fail because of this small miscalculation.

Planting too deeply, or in this case planting and the tree sinking because of decomposition because of its predecessor, can shorten the life of a tree by dozens of years. That is why it is imperative not to plant a tree in the hole of a removed tree. Move it at least 5 to 10 feet away from that original site and plant there.

This also applies to another tree situation. Say you didn’t lose a tree but lost several chunks but can’t quite bear to take it down yet. As long as all dangerous parts (anything in threat of falling off) is removed, keep the damaged tree but plant get something new started nearby. Yep, 5 to 10 feet away, plant a new tree with the idea of in a few years you will remove the damaged one as the new one gets going.

Now what if the tree, or large shrub, was a clumping variety, not just with one thick main trunk? And you lose one or two of the clumps. This happened to me during the Monday night storm last week. One of my old Washington Hawthorns, a three-clumper, had one of the three clumps decide to take a permanent vacation. It tore off all the way to the ground, kind of like an awkward gymnastic split.

Do you need to take the whole tree down? What is this brown area now revealed (refer to right picture in this story)? Will the other clumps survive if I decide to leave it? I have seen trees with wires drilled through them to put them back together does that work.

So many questions, so little time. First, I was lucky; it was a clean strip/break. No giant tear down the whole trunk. Good. Now the brown area you see is revealed, you might think it is wood rot. But after poking around the wood is solid. This is called included bark.

Included bark occurs when a clumping tree (or close branching on trees) grow larger and larger. At the base where those two clumps meet, the bark starts to get swallowed up as the girth of the tree expands. Trees get wider as they get taller (I am estimated to be 500 tree years old if that were the case in humans).

So this bark gets “included” or fused together. It can also be a point of weakness in 100 mph winds. So for my tree, I just had to remove the fallen clump and check to see if the now exposed included spot has any areas where water would collect.

Now THAT is the real reason trees die –wood rot. After any storm damage in particular, or if your cousin’s brother’s girlfriend’s half uncle just got a new chainsaw and came to “help,” you need to check for any cut or injury that would collect water.

That is why the practice of tree “topping” (so popular in the ’60s and ’70s) is now banned. The flat-top cuts collected water and let it get inside the tree, causing premature rot. Check to see that there are no areas left after pruning — and in general — on trees that collect water. If you find this, act now.

Take a small knife and open the bottom of the area that is collecting water. This is common on a tree tear or frost crack/sunscald. Vertical cracks in the bark from extreme temperature differences. At the bottom of these cracks and tears, you will often find a spot where water collects. Be sure to release and just slightly whittle away (without removing more bark than you have to) so the water flows freely down and away from the tree.

And remember, we are always just one good storm away from a free mulch pile. But it is important (and nature cool) to know that fresh chips are still “living,” and if you use them right away around your plantings, they will extract nitrogen, causing your plants to yellow. It is best to let a new pile of chips age until they are no longer green before using your trees.

And remember — we are just one windstorm away from the opportunity to plant something new!