Lady Bird's legacy

This week we went to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center for a volunteer work day. Senior Botanist Damon Waitt and Joe Marcus, who is the Center's horticulturalist, met us on the grounds to give us a tour of their planned Texas Arboretum. They hope to have over 50 species of Oaks and 170-something species of trees from around the state. It will be a challenge in some cases, since East Texas soil is acidic, while Austin sits on a limestone escarpment, making it highly alkaline. But trees are resilient, and they plan to give it their best shot.

They have over 400 volunteers at the Center, so they can get ground work done easily. We spent the day climbing four large Escarpment Live Oaks (Q. fusiformis) to prune out dead wood and separate the canopies. The vision they have developed (with a landscape architect) for the arboretum is to clear out most of the understory plants to reveal a wide-open savannah dotted with room-like trees and groups of trees. They have made a small start to that end, as these four trees were the target of a local Boy Scout's Eagle project. So far, they have opened up a lot of the interior of the "room" and mulched it with Ashe Juniper (Juniperus asheii) harvested and ground on site. Their next step was going to be to continue clearing low plants, building picnic tables, etc. I'm sure they will be quite pleased to see the huge mess we left that they will have to move before they can continue working (nothing beats a "cut-and-drop" job for us climbers). Once it is finished, Damon hopes to use this site as an example of their vision when they show potential donors the arboretum.

When it is finished (maybe in two years or so), the arboretum will include a trail about 3/4-mile long and a spur to connect with the nearby restoration research trails. We're hoping to work on more pruning projects before then. There are few jobs as satisfying as pruning Live Oaks that have never been climbed--the before/after contrast is quite striking. All we have to do in most cases is cut the dead wood and the natural beauty of the trees bursts forth.

You can see in these pictures (courtesy of WFC photgrapher Bruce Leander) that I had my helmet liner on. It wasn't as cold as some recent days here, but we timed it so the weather was unfavorable for the fungus that causes Oak Wilt, Ceratocystis fagacaerum, and the nitidulid beetles that sometimes carry it from tree to tree. There are active Oak Wilt centers on two sides of the WFC property, including several trees in the nearby Veloway. It's more common for the disease to spread in Live Oaks through underground root grafts, but we still waited for cool weather, disinfected our tools, and painted pruning cuts whenever we had to break through living tissue. The years-dead, dried-out cuts were left in their natural state.

The Center is wrestling with the decision of whether to trench the edges of the property to help prevent root transmission of the disease. The City streets and the underlying utilities probably helped with that goal, but trees have a knack for breaching these defenses. So, a trench that goes in too early will potentially be a wasted effort. Obviously, a trench too late could be devastating. Since trenching is expensive, there's a strong motivation to wait as long as possible. The WFC has 379 acres, so we're talking about a lot of trench. I hope they never get infected, but I'm sure if they do they will take the opportunity to educate visitors on how best to manage and prevent the disease.

I didn't mean to go off on such a downer. I am happy to report that the trees we saw were marvels of nature and none showed any sign of serious disease issues. The Wildflower Center is a great place to visit or spend a day working. Local homeowners and gardeners can benefit especially because the range of plants is amazing. Everyone should try to go in Spring for the big wildflower show, but any time you go you will see something surprising and beautiful that you might decide to put in your own garden. Most plants have ID tags to help you get the right stuff. If you check the WFC Web site (linked above), you can go to the semi-annual plant sale and buy seeds or plants propagated at the Center. Get yourself out there! You won't regret it.

Swingtime!

In 15 years climbing, I've done a lot of pruning out dead wood, clearing roofs, etc. I like my job, but it can get old doing the same thing day after day. So it was fun this weekend to visit my friend, Lily, who is almost 4. She got a new swing for Christmas. It is like a reverse pogo stick, with a round seat suspended from a spring-loaded tube that will allow her to bounce up and down, as well as swing. I went over to hang it in a Pecan tree (C. illinoensis) in her back yard.

I've installed a few swings over the years. I'm always glad when someone asks me to, since most people do it wrong from the trees' perspective. Though it seems counter-intuitive, the tree is better off having hardware installed in the wood rather than having the rope tied around the limb. This is because most of the action in a branch takes place in a sheet of living cambium that lies just beneath the bark. Wrapping a rope around the limb can choke off this cambium like a noose. By contrast, drilling a small hole for a ring is pretty minor damage.

An eye lag is enough in most cases to support a kid's swing, but I didn't have any, so I used a threaded rod all the way through the limb with an Amon eye nut on the end. I used a cold chisel to peen the end of the rod in side the ring and hammered the top end flat so neither side could come unscrewed. To tie into the ring, I used an old piece of climbing rope, which should last much longer than the cheap cord the swing people provided to hang the seat from the spring tube.
It only took around a half-hour to get it done. Lily was a little shaky when she tried it out, but she seemed pleased to have it there. She let here friend Lamby try it while she sized the whole thing up. I'm sure it won't be long before she is putting her new swing to a real test.

I Don't Like Ike.

I visited my mother-in-law in Houston this week. Her trees still reflect the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. After years of careful pruning, and one rather arrogant ligth placed at teh highest possible point, a big storm took out a good bit of this Willow Oak (Q. phellos). She had the debris removed from her garage, along with another Willow Oak that already had a suspicious lean before the storm.

I am sad for the trees, including another Willow Oak in front, which suffered monir damage. The Live Oak (Q. virginiana) and the Water Oak (Q. nigra) appeared to be unharmed.








The worst trees I saw in Houston were not Ike victims, though. My anectdotal evidence (based on a few trips a year for the past 15 years or so) reveals Houston to be much harsher and out-of-date market for tree care. As in Austin, Crape Myrtles (Lagerstroemia indica) take the brunt of the topping. I'm not sure I've seen the crape myrtle in Houston yet that hasn't been topped at least once. But, sadly, other trees get topped, in Houston and everywhere. If you don't know why this is bad, visit ISA's page. The short version is, lopping off a large tree brance midstream takes a huge amount of energy away from the tree, creates a wound that will lead to extensive decay, which will make all the new growth from those topeed stems much weaker thatn the equivalent untopped liibs would have been.

Based on brief forays into trying to sell work to M-I-L's neighbors, I gather the market there is highly underinformed on proper tree care practices. The going rate for this kind of work is not sufficient to do the job right, so it routinely gets done wrong. The abyssmal state of construction protection that exists everywhere is, if anything, worse here. Stripping out the interior of trees ("lion tailing") is common in trees that haven't been topped. Line clearance is brutal (though not as bad as rural topping). Maybe the periodic hurricanes make it difficult to invest in trees there. Maybe I've been running into the wrong people there. But the trees I see in Houston are suffering, and they need an educated populace to demand a higher level of care for their urban forest.

I'll do my best to fix the trees in my M-I-L's yard, but I'm still busy working on Austin as far as the rest of it. I hope some Houstonian tree crusaders are on the rise.

An old friend

I'm visiting my mother, who still lives in the house where we moved when I was 5. The one-acre lot is covered in Post Oaks (Q. stellata). There used to be a few Blackjacks (Q. marilandica), as well, but I think oak wilt came through and got them all. To late to say for sure now why they died. Our previous house had a Mimosa (Albizia julibrissin) that was large for the species; that was the first tree I ever climbed. But these trees were all huge by comparison. One in particular had a series of burls and low branches that made it possible to climb it from the ground. At first, I couldn't make it to the first burl, then I could climb up a couple of steps. It was a year or two before I could get past the first big gap to reach the heights of my older siblings. Eventually I was able to get all the way to the top and poke my head above the canopy. I could glimpse the road in from town and see when my mother was coming home from work, so I would climb up after school and hang out until I saw her coming. I would be on the ground by the time she got home, so she wouldn't know I'd broken the no-climbing-unless-adults-were-home rule. I justified my lawlessness by waiting until a little before she was due. If I happened to fall and break an arm, I wouldn't be alone long. I never really gave much thought to what would happen if I fell and broke my back, or my neck.

My dad showed us the way. Shortly after we moved in, he climbed to the first large lateral to hang a tire swing. I played on it a lot. At my sixth birthday party, we used it as a target to throw a mini-football. My friend Jay won some little toy for being best at it. We also used the tire for batting practice when I was in T-ball. I always swung very tentatively so I wouldn't miss and get mocked by my brother for striking out when the ball was just sitting there, so my parents would mark the tire and have me hit it hard. I would whale on it like I was going to knock it off its rope. It somehow failed to translate to the field. I never did get very good at hitting a ball, off a tee or otherwise, though now I can make decent contact with a pitched softball. Decent, but not great.

Today the tree is still there, but looks puny compared to most that I climb routinely at work--it's about 30 feet tall. I'm a little heavier now, so more wary of getting to the topmost branches. But it's still fun to go out and climb it for old times' sake. I don't usually worry much whether any adults are home or not.
I could climb to where my hand is in this photo soon after meeting this tree at age 5, but no higher. Reaching the branch just above my head was a milestone for me. Now I can reach the top in a few seconds.

They call it "Fall" for a reason

f you are reading this from a northern locale, you may be thinking about snow-shoveling, but here in Austin it is time for raking leaves. My Shumard Oaks (Q. shumardii) still have most of their leaves, but I have a good collection on the ground from the Texas Ash (Fraxinus texensis) and the neighbors' Pecans (C. illinoensis). Leaves need to be raked if your yard has turf grass. Even though the grass is dormant, it does still take energy from sunlight for a strong start in the Spring. Leaves deprive grass of this light and weaken it.

So, what to do with those raked leaves? Every year, I see bags of leaves on the curb at this time waiting to be picked up by the City trucks. If this sounds like your house, please reconsider that practice! Leaves are the food that feeds your soil. The routine removal of organic matter from our suburban landscapes leads to dense, dry, sterile soil--hardly a recipe for healthy roots. To keep your plants healthy, try to find a way to reuse those leaves on your property.

At my house, I have a couple of compost piles. I will add my leaves to one of them this year and work the finished compost from the other into my garden, then alternate next year. Once the pile is established, it serves as a great way to recycle vegetable scraps (no meats or fats) from the kitchen, as well--I just dig a hole in the leaf pile, dump in the scrap bucket, bury and mix a little. It cuts down on the volume of trash each week and helps keep the kitchen trash can cleaner and neater. If you want to build a compost pile, there is no need to get fancy--anything from a loop of wire fencing to a box made from old pallets will do the job. You can find all kinds of products to speed up the process, but they are not necessary--everything organic decays eventually. A bigger pile will be easier to get "cooking" if you have the space.

If you are unable or unwilling to start a compost heap, you can still make use of those leaves. Leaf piles make great insulation for outdoor plants that can't take freezing weather. Heap them around sensitive plants, then top with a sheet or blanket during cold snaps. They can also be the beginning of a mulch bed around your trees. If they are from a large-leafed tree and tend to blow away, you might want to buy, rent, or borrow a mulching mower to chop them up a bit.

Mulch is the poor (or cheap) person's tree tonic. By mimicking a forest floor, mulch holds moisture in the soil, moderates temperature extremes, and feeds the microorganisms that drive the soil ecosystem. In Austin, it also helps to make soil nutrients available to plants by acidifying the soil, which breaks down calcium compounds that roots can't absorb. The best mulch for trees is hardwood chips, but leaves play a big part, as well. For more info on mulching, check out the ISA's brochure at their Web site (also a great resource for other consumer information about trees).

If all else fails, just rake the fallen leaves into your flower beds or garden plots. If you don't have active plants there, you can dig the leaves in a bit, or you can just leave them on the soil surface to break down over Winter. As your soil improves, you will attract more worms to help carry the organic material downward. This will take some time for soil that has been routinely stripped of organic matter and fertilized with granular products--your lawn may suffer in the short term, but over time it will be healthier, stronger, and cheaper to maintain. Chemicals are a self-perpetuating cycle, in that they damage the natural system and make plants increasingly dependent on more chemicals. The only way to get beyond them is to break the cycle.

Of course, there are other benefits to leaf piles:

So get out there with a rake and start feeding your plants the natural way.

It's been cold in Austin lately (relatively speaking), and the trees show it. The dry year has led to some unusually colorful leaves on lots of trees. As always, the standout reds come from Flameleaf Sumac (Rhus lanceolata) and, sadly, the highly invasive Chinese Tallows (Triadica sebifera) that seem to be everywhere. The Shumard Oaks (Quercus shumardii) tend more to burgundy or even just brown, but they still manage to stand out. The Spanish Oaks (Q. texana) are similar, though they sometimes turn more red. Yellows dominate here. The Cedar Elms (Ulmus crassifolia) started early, so most have lost their leaves now, but the Pecans (Carya illinoensis) are going strong. Some are a rich orange-yellow, but the pale yellows are more common.

If you have oaks in Austin, this is the time to be pruning. The trees are mostly dormant, so they will be less stressed by lost foliage. We also have to consider the risk of Oak Wilt (Ceratocystis fagacaerum) infection. In the cold weather, the fungus will not be producing spores, and the insect vectors are inactive. We still dress wounds in case we see one of the warms spells that always seem to be right around the corner--indeed, the forecast calls for mild-to-warm temperatures over the next few days. If you are worried about the potential for a December outbreak, plan to prune the oaks next summer.

The mild weather also makes this a good time for planting trees here. Though nothern climates would likely kill a new transplant, our warmer winters allow roots to spread into the native soil before the heat of summer (which can come as early as March here). Spring planting here means pouring on tons of water and still risking the loss of your new trees. Get digging!

Yesterday I pruned two large Catalpas (Catalpa bignonioides). We don't have many around here, so this is maybe the third or fourth time in 15 years that I've climbed one. These had lost all their leaves, but the long, bean-like seed pods made it easy to see most of the live branches. I still had to do the old thumbnail test on a few to make sure I didn't remove too much live tissue. I was very impressed with these trees. Though my Silky saw ripped through the wood like it was paper, my attempts to simply break off dead branches were not very successful. Even though my tie-in point was in a smallish, very flexible branch, I quickly got over any concerns that the tree would fail on me. The aroma of the cut wood was very distinctive, and I enjoyed it when the wind wasn't blowing sawdust into my nose and eyes during the cuts. Still, these trees were assholes! Starting with rope installation, my first throw missed the mark and caught on a 1/2-inch branch with a tight crotch; I tried to pull it out and promptly wedged the throwbag in so tightly that I had to use the other end of the line. No amount of tugging was going to break that twig (see above)! Once I got into the trees, they poked me, tangled my ropes, grabbed my carabiners to make recrotching almost impossible, and caught every branch I dropped before it could reach the ground, so I had to fetch them and refetch them as I descended through the canopy. I finally finished with a begrudging respect for a species that I hope not to encounter that closely in future. Next time, I send one of the boys.

All of this was made worse by the cold snap. We Texans, especially south of Waco, don't see enough freezing weather (or even sub-40, as we had this day) to be good at dealing with it. I have learned over the years to dress in many layers, but I forget some details over the 9-month summer, so my bottom layer on this day was a cotton union suit. Cute pajamas, maybe, but lousy insulator. I'm committed to man-made fibers now (until next winter, anyway). At one point, I was on the ground between trees, and had to resist the urge to bury myself in the client's leaf pile to warm up. As always, the best cure for cold turned out to be getting back to work.

As I will now.