Several factors contribute to the health of a tree — water, soil, pesticides, and fertilizer. These determine if they will stay healthy or not. Before you start a tree planting activity in your Utah County property, you have to be ready for the responsibility that comes with it.
This is because you need to care for them all the time. If you don’t, they’ll get sick and eventually die. For the already suffering trees, you can care for them by doing these things:
What to Watch Out For
Trees that are left uncared for can cause a hazard. Most of them can cause injuries because of their dead branches. You need to trim your tree regularly to avoid such incident.
It’s hard to tell at once if a tree is sick, but it’s common for a tree to drop its leaves when it is sick. The tree may also have cracks in its trunks. You’ll also notice that the tree has lost its brightness. A change in color at the wrong season may happen when a tree is stressed.
Though the change is gradual, if you know your tree enough, you’ll notice the subtle changes like the growth of fungi. Some trees may also develop smaller leaves when the tree is sick. Try to observe your tree so you can act on it right away.
What to Do with a Sick tree
It’s important to trim your tree to keep it healthy. Prune branches that cross over each other to allow proper airflow. You can also remove dying limbs to secure your tree.
Stop using chemical-laden pesticides. These are harmful because it kills helpful microbes, good insects, and nematodes, which are beneficial to trees. Many of these pesticides couldn’t even eradicate pest insects so what’s the use of using them.
Some fertilizers are also bad for trees. These could contain harmful chemical compositions that only make the tree unhealthy. Some fertilizers contain a lot of salt and they can even be contaminated so it adds to the illness of the tree. Don’t use weed and feed fertilizers. What you can do is remove the weeds the natural way like putting mulch.
Too much moist on the roots is bad for trees. This can happen in instances where a tree is planted too low. Due to this, the roots and flares have a hard time breathing. The oxygen availability is decreased because the roots and flares are covered with fill soil. Allow your tree to breathe by removing the soil on the flares. You can use an air knife or a stiff brush.
Allowing the feeder roots to breathe is also another way to keep trees healthy. You can punch holes using core aerators, tuning forks, or other devices that can poke a hole in the soil. Let your soil and roots breathe. Punch six- to eight-inches-deep of holes.
Finally, you can apply organic matters like rock minerals, sugars, and compost to the root area. An example of a rock mineral is lava sand and decomposed granite. On the other hand, sugar is good for the root area because it acts like a microbe stimulator. You can also use cornmeal to allow the sugar to convert more efficiently.
You don’t need to remove a sick tree at once. There’s hope if you try some first aid remedies to your tree first. Unless the tree is a hopeless case, try these things first and see how it goes.
