Notes from a treedweller

Suckers

2011-08-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

People often ask to have the "suckers" removed from trees.

Sometimes clients ask me if I will be removing the suckers from their trees as I prune. The answer is always a little bit complicated. The client usually wants them removed, but it is rarely in the best interest of the trees to do so. For those who have come to associate that "clean" look with well maintained trees, I have to explain why this practice is not a good idea.

The problem starts with the name itself. “Sucker” is a common term applied to the small interior sprouts that grow from the stem and major branches of a tree. Some people limit it to just the whips that grow up from the roots or base of the tree, but most of the time the gist is that there are a lot of dense, ugly little clusters of branches crowding up the middle. They want to see nice, “clean” branches arching gracefully to a nice spray of leaves at the ends.

Looks good to some, but weakens trees.

Everyone has a different opinion about how far this should go, of course, but the basic idea is the same. At its worst, this practice is sometimes called "lion-tailing" or "poodle-dogging" because of the puff of green leaves at the end of long, bare poles.

There are many problems with this. First, there is no need to remove sprouts; these branches don't “suck” anything more from the tree than any other branch. Second, the more prolific the sprouts, the more likely it is that the tree truly needs them to shade itself and produce energy in response to some kind of damage. Third, the more we remove the interior branches from a tree, the more likely it is that the tree will suffer large branch failures in years to come. Fourth, in most cases, the more we strip out these interior branches, the more vigorously


Multiple wounds and potential for sun scald

the tree will try to replace them, making this an endless cycle.

“Sucker” is just a poor way to describe the interior growth of a tree. Every new leaf a tree grows, regardless of its location, requires a small expenditure. However, as soon as the leaf gets started, it begins to produce energy for itself and the whole system. If there is any truth to this myth, it is this: to some degree, a tree has a finite amount of resources to fuel the photosynthetic reaction. If there are a lot of interior branches using some of these resources, there is less to be sent to the top of the tree, so it may take longer to reach its full height. Later, I will explain why this is actually a good thing, but it may help explain why this issue won't go away.

First, a little background: Tree branches grow in two ways. Each branch gets longer by adding new cells to its tip; this is called primary growth. After the first year, the branch continues to get longer but also increases in diameter by adding a new layer of wood just under the bark; this is called secondary growth. (It is secondary growth that creates the rings we count to learn the age of trees).


Cut one, get several.

Every branch supports its parent. New branching occurs when a latent bud on the surface of a branch is stimulated by sunlight. In the upper canopy, this means the highest tips keep reaching higher, while the widest tips keep reaching wider, and the older parts of branches keep getting thicker.

So, imagine a large tree trunk, and a few feet up a really large branch comes off the side. The stem is thicker below that branch than above it, creating taper. So, a tree that has been excessively "elevated" all its life is roughly the same diameter where it originates as it has where the branching begins. A tree that has had more low branches retained may not be as tall, but it will be stouter and stronger.

Similarly, a branch in a full canopy has developed a distinct taper along its length, which makes it much stronger. This is why slowing a tree's vertical growth by diffusing its energy throughout many small branches can actually benefit the tree greatly over the long term.

This Oak was sunburned badly.

But, if a dramatic change occurs to suddenly put more light on the trunk (such as a storm break or removal of an adjacent tree), you get a quick flush of interior sprouts. Without the sprouts, the bark of the tree can be damaged by the sudden increase in sunlight, just as people sunburn. Sun scald can kill a section of bark, which is the tree's best defense against disease and insects. It might not even be very noticeable to the casual observer, but this damage can become a weak point where the branch will break someday. Further, since now all the active buds are at the tips, the branches get longer and longer without significant taper; this puts more strain over the length of the limb (the way a dumbbell tires us out more at arm's length than it does when held close to the body).

“Thinning” the canopy, a practice commonly promoted by some companies, isolates branches, which are ill-equipped to resist damage by themselves. A dense canopy parts the wind like a building, allowing branches to support each other. Add to that, a branch with all its weight at the end whips around more violently;

These "clean" trees are more likely to break in the wind.

interior growth dampens the motion and spreads out the energy of the storm. As a result, denser trees sustain comparatively minor damage.

But if the branch does break, a well developed interior canopy still provides an advantage. Regardless of where those long, bare, untapered poles break, the only real recourse is to remove the entire branch back to its parent. But if we have preserved the interior crown, when a branch breaks near the end we can make a good cut a short distance inward and leave the next strong sprout to replace the lost section.

All of this is complicated by the fact that, in Austin, we have a lot of mature Live Oak trees. Live Oaks keep a dense canopy of leaves through the winter, so they tend to shade out their interior branches, developing an open crown naturally. So, homeowners look at their neighbors' oaks and want their trees look the same. Unfortunately, all trees are not equal. Ash trees especially will suffer the effects I have described above when routinely stripped out. Elms and Pecans, Hackberries, and most of our other large trees also tend to suffer more than Live Oaks as a result of this type of pruning. I can make your Ash tree look somewhat like a Live Oak, but I cannot make it nearly as strong as one.

Sprouts grow soon after drastic changes in sun.

When faced with all these facts, it's a rare client that still insists on the strip-em-out annual program. Still, leaving interior sprouts is sometimes unattractive. I think it's okay to let the trees be ugly for awhile, but not everyone agrees.

For those who insist on improving the appearance of a particularly crowded tree, it is completely acceptable to thin out the sprouts to a few strong-looking, well spaced branches. In highly structured gardens, it might even be helpful to “clean” a short section of the largest limbs near each major branch union. The select few remaining branches, with any luck, will develop more quickly than the individual members of the cluster; they are likely to provide just as much shade as the whole group would have done.

By highlighting the tree's structure in this way, a talented arborist can keep the majority of the interior growth while distracting the eye from the shaggy sprouts that are helping the tree recover from a significant, stressful event (or events). A healthy tree will either develop some of the remaining sprouts into permanent branches, or higher branches will shade them out. Over time, the ugly clusters of sprouts will naturally fade away. Clients are happy and trees recover. Sprouts become a non-issue.

A well informed consumer will learn to look at the finished job differently; the best pruning work will focus on dead branches and specific problems (clearance issues, disease, natural damage, etc.). Rather than looking for a drastic change in the tree's appearance and a huge pile of green branches going into the chipper or trailer, they learn to expect mostly dead wood on the ground and a tree that looks a lot like it did before the pruning. There are exceptions, of course, but even a tree that needs to be reduced should look similar to when it started. Proper reductions occur in the dense, green tips where loss of branches is not as noticeable.

But some companies continue to promote the practice of removing “suckers,” while others will readily comply with a client's request to do so without informing them of the consequences. An uneducated consumer might end up with severely damaged trees despite the effort and expense of hiring a “professional.” And so, sadly, it turns out the real “suckers” are the people who get burned by these unethical and/or ignorant companies.

Protect your trees from unnecessary damage; whenever you interview potential arborists about the work on your trees, be sure to insist that interior live branches will not be removed unless absolutely necessary. If you have the time, ask for references and look at the company's previous work to make sure they understand what you are talking about. If more consumers do these things, the companies that prey on suckers might be forced to learn proper tree care.

Random thoughts on a rainy day

2011-01-16T13:15:00.000-08:00

Something I did today that I should do more often: ate food I made from actual ingredients in my own house.
Something that really didn't surprise me today: really old Malt-o-Meal from the back of the refrigerator tastes kind of rancid. That wasn't the only food as mentioned above, thankfully.
Something that did surprise me today: Even when it's cold and wet out, and everyone else is inside with the heater, Dill prefers to hang out in the back yard. Someone has to monitor the birds and squirrels, I suppose.
Something I did today that I should do less often: slept late and wasted the morning. I guess "wasted" is a loaded word. I could have been up at 6am and I still wasn't going to get much done in the soup outside. Deferred the day, let's say.
Something I did today just to exercise my brain: tried to write out the chords from Moonlight Sonata from memory. I didn't get very far, and strongly suspect I got some wrong. It did help me learn to play a little of it on the guitar, though.
Something I did today that almost nobody ever does: roasted my own coffee in a popcorn popper.
Something I didn't do today that practically everybody does: watch football. I'd have said watch TV, but I'll probably do that before the day is out.
Something I'm determined to do today despite the weather: get these stir-crazy dogs to someplace they can run around awhile.
Something I've been meaning to do and might get to: empty the compost bucket. Now that it has some really fragrant chopped onion that was in the fridge too long, I think it's pretty likely.
Something I probably won't: mop the kitchen.
Primary short-term goal: organization.
mid-term: move to the country.
long-term: ?

New ideas on tree planting

2010-04-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

April is not the best time to plant trees in Austin, since hot days may be just around the corner. But it is almost Arbor Day for most of the country, so it seems like a good time to discuss planting techniques. Although following traditional guidelines may work for most situations, I would like to discuss what's happening on the cutting edge of our industry in relation to transplanting container-grown trees.

If you saw my post on root crowns, you know a little bit about the problem we are trying to address. Trees grown in containers are very likely to have multiple problems with their root systems. Most of them stem from standard nursery practices. When a plant is grown in a container, roots will radiate outward until they hit the side of the container, then turn. Some turn downward, but most begin growing around the container until they encircle the root ball. This would not be a problem if it were addressed, but nurseries tend to pull the plants out of one pot and put them into a larger one without any notice of the circling roots. To the extent that the plant can still function, new roots reach the sides of the new container and the problem repeats. By the time a large container-grown tree reaches the consumer, it might have several internal rings marking each of the smaller containers that have housed the plant.Many of the transplanted trees we see today are performing poorly due to these root issues, and I expect that to be the case for many years to come.

Some research has shown that nurseries can easily correct the problem by shaving off the outer edge of the root ball each time the plant is potted up (for example, Ed Gilman in Florida and Brian Kempf in California). This removes the circling roots and starts the tree off right in the new pot. They found no negative affects on tree growth from this practice. Notice this is not the same as the tradition of slicing through the sides of the root ball vertically to break the circling roots--they found no difference between sliced root balls and those left untouched. This is removing the outer soil all the way around and off the bottom. How much to remove will vary based on container size--a one-gallon pot might require only a half-inch slice, while a 90-gallon pot might lose the outer two or three inches. The key is to remove circling roots and leave roots radiating out from the stem.

Unfortunately, most nurseries have not caught up to this research. It is rare in most markets to find a container-grown tree without circling roots at multiple container sizes. This is where the installer comes in. Gilman and others have had some success shaving the largest rootball at planting, but I am going to talk about a more aggressive approach. Some researchers have been turning tradition on its head by washing, dismantling, and reorganizing root systems when they are installed (Appleton, Bonnie Lee 2007. The BareRoot of the matter. American Nurseryman: Issue
10, Vol. 205: 41-46; Flott, Jim 2006. Don’t Plant Trees, Plant Roots. City Trees. Journal of the Society of Municipal Arborists. Vol. 42, No. 2: 32-36). While we used to learn that root balls are delicate and should not be disturbed more than necessary, Appleton has been instructing equipment operators to drop the trees from a few feet in the air so the root ball will be easier to dismantle. Though shocking to some, this practice seems to be leading to better results over the long term.

Flott and others have been soaking the root balls in tubs of water for a few hours, then reaching in to massage out the substrate (nursery-speak for the soil in the pot, which is not really soil but primarily organic matter). Appleton uses a high pressure hose or a pressure washer along with had massaging to work out the substrate. In each case, the goal is to remove as much of the substrate as possible to reveal the root system. Then circling roots are worked free of the ball so they can be spread outward at planting. Though, naturally, the goal is to avoid as much damage as possible, it is surprising how many roots can be lost without penalty to the tree after transplant.

The process from here is really as simple and basic as it sounds. Once the container is removed, we begin washing out the substrate. Our experience is mainly in the spray method rather than soaking, but in either case we get water into the edges of the ball and begin massaging with our hands to loosen and remove the substrate. We like to start on top of the ball, since most container-grown trees have been buried too deeply. Once we begin to define the root crown, we seek out and cut any stem-girdling roots. Only after we have established the proper grade of the plant do we begin working on the sides and bottom of the root system. It can be difficult to get started, but soon enough individual roots start to become visible and we begin tugging gently to see where they grow. Some roots will be broken in the process, but by carefully working around the perimeter, we can gradually dismantle the root ball. It is not unlike untying a big knot.

Once most of the substrate is removed, we generally have well defined flares at the base of the stem with large, loose roots. There is usually still a small ball at the center, but it is much smaller than the original container. Now we know more about how the hole should look. We only need to dig a deep enough hole for this center ball; beyond that point, we dig shallow trenches to create pathways for the loose roots. The tree is inserted into the hole and the native soil is worked back in with water (if we use the soaking method, we can use the tub of water to help work the soil into the ball). Sometimes called "mudding in," this technique helps to work the soil deep into the root ball. Add a little soil and a little water, then jiggle the tree and use your hands to push soil into the gaps. If air pockets are left under the tree, it may lead to root loss or settling that will adversely affect the tree's ability to adapt to the new site. Continue to add more soil and more water until you either run out of soil or the hole is full. Then follow standard mulching procedures (remember, mulch should be three inches thick on the soil surface but SHOULD NOT be piled against the base of the tree (see more here).

This is messy, muddy work. Depending on the site, it may be difficult to wash out the ball near the planting hole without excessive damage to nearby soil and turf. But if you dig the hole first, then wash the root ball out into the hole, the moisture merely helps keep roots hydrated to minimize loss and makes it easier to work the roots into the native soil. Still, it may be necessary to create a staging area for the washing, then bring fully washed trees to the planting sites (just make sure to be efficient--too much time exposed to air will allow more roots to dry out and die before the tree is planted). It is still a good idea to keep a tarp handy to collect the soil that is dug out, which helps to ensure there is enough to backfill the hole at the end. one big benefit to this method is that the hole becomes a wide, shallow dish (read: easy to dig) instead of a narrow, deep pit. Roots are immediately placed in contact with native soil, so transplant shock is minimal, as are problems with stem-girdling roots. Because the roots spread out farther, the tree is more stable and usually needs no staking.

acpt 2

2010-02-20T17:38:00.000-08:00

Puzzle 5. What can I say. BEQ authored the pain this year. Again, most of the room failed to finish. What's really disturbing is when the elite are getting up and leaving while you're still looking for the first clue you can answer. It wasn't the hardest I've seen overall, but here's the difference from last year: I got less of that one in the allotted time, but ten more minutes and I would have finished. This one I've seen online and I remember some of the clues for the ones I missed, and I still don't know what the answers are. I don't know what that means, but there it is.

I've had some ups and downs today. After my big confession earlier, I looked at my scans, and the judges overlooked my mistake. [Man, since I found out I'm not supposed to double-space after a period, I am really struggling to stop that.] I'd like to think I'd own up and see that they correct things regardless, but now that I've publicly announced my failure, I really can't take credit for a correct solution. Further, after reviewing my #5 scan, I found another couple of squares that didn't get marked. #4 and #6 I finished correctly. So I can't say for sure what my ranking is, but I'm right around 200 of 646. Give me the 150 I got that I shouldn't have, and throw in about 175 for a correct #5, and I would be ranked at 150 or so. The online results haven't caught up yet to the point that I know where I'd be in the C division. All so much navel gazing anyway, but I'm intrigued to see how far I am from greatness.

Speaking of, 1) Dan Feyer 2) Howard Barkin 3) tie: Tyler Hinman, Anne Erdmann 5) Kelly Langan 6) Kiran Kedlaya 7) tie: Stella Zawistowski, Francis Heaney 9) tie: Al Sanders, Ellen Ripstein 11) Eric Maddy 12) Katherine Bryant 13) Trip Payne 14) Dave Tuller 15) tie: Amy Reynaldo, Doug Hoylman 17) Joon Pahk. I stopped there because it was a ways down before I recognized another name from the Rex Parker blog. Joon is exactly 400 points behind Dan, who has 9690 (I have 7750 uncorrected).

I finally met up with Rex Parker (who isn't competing), and he introduced me to Sandy (also not in it), imsdave, mac, Bob Kerfuffle, PuzzleGirl, Karen from the Cape (and her mom), Eric Berlin . . . it's funny how fast those dominoes fall. I had a great dinner with some of those folks and met ACME at the restaurant. Somehow I lost them on the way to this evening's unofficial puzzling. I hope they've done better than I have tonight.

One puzzle to go (21X) in the morning. Whatever miracles I may have been hoping for have not materialized, so I look forward to solving it for fun, then watching the finals.

ACPT has begun

2010-02-20T11:00:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am in NYC. Last night I checked the bar for imsdave, but never recognized him, so dinner was with some non-puzzling friends who came up from DC. Afterward, I went to the wine-and-cheese thing, but I suck at that stuff and really didn't enjoy myself. That's okay. It was good to catch up with old friends, too.

This morning I staked out a spot in the big room and settled in to wait for the big start. I kept watching for online friends, but somehow the only ones I ever found were busy working the event so I haven't spoken to any of them. I have practiced hard puzzles all week as I toured the city—on the trains, at lunch, when I sat down in the park, always solving. And I don't know if I accidentally got some archived puzzles I'd done before, or if I'm improving, but I was really finishing most of them, albeit a little too slowly, making

me think I have a chance at solving #5. Incidentally, if you get a chance to see the paper exhibit at the Museum of Arts and Design, it's well worth the trip.

So now we're on our first big break for lunch. Three puzzles down. I have already learned two things that either I didn't get last time or I forgot.

It's better to sit near people who are slower than you. Last year, I was finishing ahead of the people around me. Sure, some speedsters were leaving in other parts of the room, but I barely noticed them. This time, both of the guys to my right are getting up while I still have half a puzzle to go, and it makes me think I'm going too slow and I need to get on with it already. Rushing and losing concentration are not conducive to good results.
When there's a niggle in the back of my head that says something is not right, I should pay attention. Short version is, I already have at least one mistake after three puzzles.

Longer version follows. I will not provide any outright spoilers, but if you want a pure solving experience on these puzzles later, stop reading now.

The second puzzle was by Liz Gorski. It was one of those alter-a-common-phrase-to-make-a-new-funny-phrase themes. I got off to a slow start and wondered if I'd even finish. I finally pieced together the first theme answer and found it quite puzzling. No time to dwell, though, so I kept solving. By the end, I had figured out the theme and knew all the other stuff was right, but I still couldn't see how that first one worked. Glanced at the clock, saw a minute was about to turn over, and stuck up my hand to get the extra 25 points for finishing early. I wandered around in the lobby awhile, unable to let go of that first phrase. I kept trying to figure out what the source was and could not make sense of it. Finally, it hit me. I had read the abbreviation “co.” as country, not company. And so my hopes of a perfect set of solutions were dashed before lunch.

Of course, I said going in that I didn't expect to win, and it was true, and even if I hadn't made the mistake I wouldn't win, and that's okay. But it really hurts my pride and my ego to fail so early, and it really dashed my confidence going into the third puzzle (by Patrick Berry). I was slow and shaky. Then I had a couple of places near the top where I was stuck, which shook me even more.

I kept plowing along, though. It was a larger grid with sports-related puns. Again, an early theme phrase was stumping me. I didn't rush to stick something in there, though, and kept staring until finally the correct fill hit me (I hope—I'm pretty sure—well, we'll see). I was thinking how I'd cry foul at the blogs if this was a daily puzzle, since it involved a proper name crossed with something else I found obscure—already things are blurring in my mind. I'll get the set of puzzles tomorrow and I can really beat that dead horse to death, but for now I'm just glad I dug it out and regained a little mojo. Anyway, once I finally saw the pun, the other answers seemed pretty gettable after all (probably a good lesson to learn for the next time I'm tempted to pick nits).

Now it's time for lunch and regrouping. More later.

American Crossword Puzzle Tournament

2010-02-12T13:36:00.000-08:00

Since I haven't been keeping up with the trees here, I thought I'd derail myself to hype the main event of my vacation, which begins next week. Starting Feb 20, I will be competing in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Brooklyn, New York. This will be my second time in the contest, which was created and continues to be primarily the work of Will Shortz, editor of the New York Times crossword puzzle. If last year was any indication, he culls out the best of the best for this event, presenting seven puzzles by constructors well known to most of us who are geeky enough to participate in the event. I think the 7 contest puzzles are meant to approximate the range of difficulty that the NYT uses, starting with fairly easy puzzles on Monday, then getting progressively harder till Saturday, with a moderately challenging but oversized Sunday.

The puzzles last year didn't quite adhere to the same difficulty range. Of course, I am speaking from only one year of experience, so take this all with a grain of salt. But I would say the easiest puzzle was probably not quite as easy as the typical Monday NYT; the middle puzzles were probably all Tuesday-Thursday level. Instead of a pair of killers, as is typical on Fridays and Saturdays, the tournament has only the dreaded Puzzle 5 to sort out the top solvers from the rest of us schmoes--it was hard, but I would say not quite as bad as some of the NYT weekend offerings. As in the newspaper, some puzzles have a theme that may give extra hints to solvers, while #5 was themeless last year (I can't remember for sure, but I think the rest all had some kind of theme).

The hotel sets aside a huge room for the contest. Long, cafeteria-style tables are filled with contestants, who get one puzzle at a time. Everyone starts together, and a timer begins to tick off the minutes. Proctors around the room watch for hands; when you finish, you turn in your solution, the time is noted, and you may leave the room. The next puzzle begins about half an hour after the deadline for the previous one. In between, people talk about the puzzle; play other games; and shop in the lobby for puzzle books, games, and (at least last year) crossword-themed art. There's a lunch break, which means a lot of impromptu groups walking to one nearby restaurant or another. I suspect there are elite, highly competitive solvers who go to their hotel rooms to stay focused and eat special crossword-solving diets and such, but I didn't meet any of them. Saturday night (and Friday night) there are informal games and social activities, then there's puzzle #7 Sunday morning, and the live finals Sunday afternoon. The top three solvers from the A, B and C divisions all work a final puzzle on a stage with live commentary (wearing headphones to drown out any help from the audience or commentators). They all have the same grid and solution, but three different sets of clues makes each round significantly harder than the previous one(s). It was very exciting to see the A final especially--this video shows eventual champion Tyler Hinman as he agonizes over the last couple of squares, and finally figures it out to win with the only correct solution (again--accuracy trumps speed).

My skill level puts me solidly among the schmoes. I can do well on the early-week puzzles, and pretty quickly by most people's standards, though I'm not nearly as fast as the best. As of last year, I'm not sure I had ever successfully completed a Friday or Saturday puzzle. I can now say I definitely have (a few times), but I am far from the level where I expect to be able to do so on a given weekend. After four puzzles, I think I was near the top quarter of the field (someone who really cared about this could go to the site linked above, where all the results are listed and broken down in more ways than I care to list, to calculate my actual position, but I'm satisfied to guess). Puzzle five dropped me down to somewhere between the 35th and 40th percentiles. I had a good #6, and then missed one letter on Sunday to finish 244th out of 674 (MOAPO!!).

Those 674 people came from all over the country and beyond. The majority were from New York, of course, and most of the others were from nearby states, but plenty of us made the trip from across the US. I don't have my contestant list, which included brief bios, but the results show a handful of "foreign" competitors (which I'm sure includes at least some Canadians--I don't really know how exotic we got). Being in Texas, I was torn between entering the West division or the South; I competed in the West, which meant I was in the same region as the eventual winner (for his fifth title), Tyler Hinman. Not that in mattered--there was a similarly elite solver, Trip Payne, in the Southern division, as well (This year I saw a handy map -- don't know if it's new or if I missed it last time -- that puts TX in the South.). No, like most of the contestants, I knew in advance I was not going to win in any of the various subdivisions of the field (well, I was hoping to squeak out a top place among the rookies, but knew it wasn't likely).

The primary divisions are the skill levels: A through E, with most of us falling into the C division. To get into B or A, you have to have competed in the past and done exceptionally well (top 20% or better, or top 3 in the lower division). To get into D or E, you have to have done worse than at least 40% of the field in an earlier contest. As a rookie, I was automatically a C. If I'm reading the statistics correctly, there were 301 of us last year; of those, I finished 108. That's just about what I expect, since I solve the NYT puzzle everyday online and the applet there tracks times--I routinely finish fairly close to the line between the top two thirds (though in good weeks I can make the top 20-25% on Monday and Tuesday, and I often don't finish Fri or Sat at all--or cheat with google to do so).

A word about that--scoring is pretty complex when you first try to read the rules, but the gist is, you get points for each correct answer, a bonus for each completely accurate puzzle, and more bonuses for each minute you finish ahead of the allowed time limit. I think most people finished most of the puzzles in the time allowed, although puzzle 5 ended with most of the room still working. So speed is good, but only if you're accurate. Many people cursed their own failure to check a cross that would have revealed an obvious mistake and saved over 150 points. Again, all the details are at the ACPT site.

By finishing behind the top 20% but ahead of the bottom 60%, I kept myself firmly in the C division for this year. I would have needed another 1400 points or so to make the C finals last time--just about what I would have gotten if I had solved correctly on #5 and #7. So it isn't impossible to imagine. But I won't be holding my breath. So why am I spending all this money to do it again?

It's fun. Not only are these some of the best puzzles anywhere, but nowhere else can I finish a puzzle with a funny theme and talk about it with others who shared my enjoyment (except in the virtual world). If I mention a puzzle to most of my friends, they smile politely and generally try not to look bored. At ACPT, everyone is talking between puzzles about the good jokes or the clever clues. Some people bring puzzles they have made themselves and leave piles of them in the lobby for those of us who need more than six a day. Some dress in crossword-themed clothing. All are receptive to an invitation for lunch or a trip to the bar after the event is over. Most are like me, fully intending to finish well below the winners, and they simply do not care. The rankings are virtually irrelevant to all but a few of us. It's about the camaraderie and the shared passion for puzzling.

So if you made it through this whole write-up, the ACPT just might be for you. See you in Brooklyn!

Crape Myrtle show

2009-10-20T06:39:00.000-07:00

After one of the hottest, driest summers Austin has ever seen, we finally got some rain last month. Not just a quick shower that disappears in minutes, but days of slow, steady soaking. For fans of crape myrtles ( Lagerstroemia indica), it was a sweet reward.

Crape myrtles are native to Asia, but they do well almost everywhere. They are tough, reliable trees that usually bloom all summer. In this year's heat, not so much. Irrigated trees in parking lots and commercial developments (and a few residences) bloomed, though perhaps not as boldly as in other years, but most of us saw few, if any, flowers. Finally, the rain changed that. For several days, it was hard to find a place in Austin that was not in view of a burst of blossoms on at least one crape. It was an amazing show.

A few of my friends

2009-08-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

I've been on another long hiatus. My original idea for this blog was to record the often random thoughts that go through my head all day while I climb trees. Somehow, it morphed into a tree advice and education column. As much of my time is already spent in these pursuits, I kind of got burned out on blogging.

So here I am, back to share some photos from recent climbs without any yucky education to go with. First, I was working near the lake, where high humidity leads to unusual amounts of ball moss (Tillandsia recurvata). I was climbing a live oak, and what had appeared to be a large cluster of the bryophyte turned out to be a bird's nest. Pretty sneaky! Even in this photo, it's hard to see, but it was really quite well formed and deep. It looked very cozy, although nobody was home. I think the year is over as far as baby birdmaking is concerned.

Another job was more reptilian. First, I was moving across the tree when I looked up to see a big lizard, about a foot long. Usually, I see these as a flash of gray as they disappear into the underbrush or up into the highest canopy, but this guy sat there long enough for me to take a couple of closeups. I then had to take off a couple of twigs a few inches from his nose. It was the second of these that finally were too much for him, and he did, in fact, disappear up the tree.

Later that day, I noticed a small snake (thin, but maybe two feet long) slithering along a branch. He was not as quick as the lizard, but he was quick to move away from me. He slithered out a branch a ways, then, when I followed him with the camera, dripped down into the bushes below, which offered him better camoflage.

And that's a sampling of what you miss if you never climb a tree. I hope to get better about regular postings, even maybe some that might teach you a little bit.

Root Crowns

2009-04-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

Most people never get to see what a tree looks like underground. Today we did some root crown excavations so I took a few pictures. This first one shows clearly what can go wrong and why we sometimes excavate.

The tree is about 10 inches in diameter and the width of the hole is about two feet. We blew out the top six inches or so of soil to get a look at the primary trunk flares. When soil gets added around the base of a tree, it loses some of the deepest roots that no longer get enough air and/or water. It responds by sending new roots upward toward the surface. Sometimes a small root crosses over a flare and chokes it off like a noose. The dark line across the center flare in this picture is such a girdling root. We cut it at either end to relieve the pressure, but left it in the groove that had formed around it so as not to damage the bark underneath.

Another problem with added soil is that it traps moisture against the stem of the tree. Roots are well equipped to keep out water they don't want, but stems and branches are not. Trapping moist soil against the bark can lead to decay, disease, or insect infestation. The second picture shows a tree that was about 4 inches too deep. In this case, it wasn't from raising the grade of the lawn, but rather it is a recent transplant that was buried too deep. It may have been the fault of the installer, but just as likely could have been that way in the container. Nurseries tend to add a little soil to the top of the root ball each time they repot, so often container-grown trees are several inches deep before they are ever purchased. The next shot is from the other side of the same tree. You can see a dark line where the soil was before we started at the bottom of the gray bark . The hole is a little deeper than it needs to be because we like to inspect thoroughly for problems when we have the opportunity. When all is finished, we will fill the deepest parts of the hole, leaving the arching trunk flares exposed.The last one shows a tree that has been excavated and had the soil aerated to about 10 feet from the trunk. There are bits of grass still poking through, but it has been pretty dried out and may not survive if we left it like this. The final step is to spread compost over the soil, then top it all off with a three-inch layer of wood chips as mulch. That combination will choke out almost all of the remaining grass. Any stragglers that poke through will be easily pulled out. By creating this buffer between tree and lawn, we avoid weedeater damage and make more water and nutrients available to the tree (grass is a very good competitor).

I'm often asked how far out a tree should be mulched. I always say, some is better than none, and more is better than less. In a forest, there would be little or no grass and everything would be mulch. The closer we can get to that ideal, the better off our trees will be. For more information about mulching, visit the ISA consumer site.

Leaf Rollers

2009-04-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

In Austin, it's oak leaf roller season. Every year, live oaks are visited by these small, green caterpillars. Some years, it seems like a plague. This year, I have not seen many yet, but there may still be time.

Most people notice these things when they start dangling from the trees. They will hang by a single strand of web, similar to a spider's web. For those of us who find tiny, green worms really creepy, this can be a very difficult time. Walking to the car or mailbox means dodging worms and webs left and right. Often, after I've been working among them, I feel something tickle me hours later and absentmindedly squash one of the caterpillars onto my fingers. It's not very pleasant, but really it's no big deal for the trees in most cases.

Today I didn't see any caterpillars, but I did see the signs they were around. These photos show how the moth gets its name. On the right is a healthy branch next to one with all the leaves affected. Below is a closeup of some affected leaves. If you pry open those curled leaves, you will find inside either a larva or the remains of a cocoon that one made.

We usually get a few calls every year asking what to do about these critters. In the heavy years, we tend to get a lot of calls. But, except in severe cases, there really isn't much cause for action. The caterpillars eat some of the leaves, and some people get really creeped out, but things quickly run their course and the problem solves itself. The birds feast during heavy years, leading to light infestation the following year.

If a tree is so covered that it seems likely to suffer from the leaf damage, treatment would be the same as for any worm or caterpillar. I recommend spraying with Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), which is deadly to larvae but pretty harmless otherwise. It still is wise to take care with Bt, since it does not discriminate between nasty larvae and caterpillars of desirable, pollinating moths and butterflies. Stronger pesticides are available, of course, but they would be overdoing things in this case. The Bt will do the job, and if it misses a few, they will be gone soon regardless.

Pecans

2009-04-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

The State Tree of Texas, Pecan (Carya illinoensis) trees are among the largest in our area. They make nice shade trees in addition to providing an edible nut. The natives tend to have small, bitter nuts that are mostly scavenged by wildlife. But planting the right cultivar will yield bushels of the things every couple of years once the tree is established.

As an arborist, I have mixed feelings about these trees. Of course, I love a big, nice tree, but working on them is a real challenge. First, their bark comes off in flaky plates. These plates are notorious for grabbing lines and not letting go. To ascend a tall tree, most climbers throw a sack of shot on a light cord through a nice crotch. When the bag comes back down, the climber ties on a rope pulls it into the crotch, then climbs it into the tree. Pecans often thwart this process. The small cord gets caught under a flake of bark and the bag won't drop. It sometimes takes several good throws before one finally returns to the ground.

Once the rope is in, the real work begins. Pecans are brittle trees that tend to sprawl out in every direction. They get really heavy with nuts in the fall. The older ones have often had at least one "tree trimmmer" strip them out at some point, so there is little interior growth and not much branch taper. What this all adds up to is, they often overreach and break large limbs. When a good arborist is at work, almost every Pecan job will include some crown reduction.

Crown reduction is more than just taking out weight, though it often gets called weight reduction. Taking a heavy branch from the inside of the canopy will not help much. If you imagine holding a dumbell, it's a lot easier to hold it close to your body than at arm's length. The same principle applies in trees. Removing interior growth does very little to reduce strain on weak limbs while contributing to weak taper development and exposing the entire crown to more wind stress. A proper crown reduction is better thought of as sail reduction. By shortening the longest limbs, we reduce the surface area that is hit by strong winds. This is the relief the tree really needs.

So, the climber has to get to the ends of branches. That's in a tree known to break easily. Often, it's a tree that has broken already in the past, so there is not always a nice, central tie-in point to allow for easy movement through the tree. The branches tend to be widely spaced, so the climbing is more difficult than in trees where it is possible to step from branch to branch like in a jungle gym. Once there, a climber has to cut branches and drop them 75 feet or more. In a suburban lawn, that's a big opportunity to break something; most branches have to be held until they can be tossed to a safe area.

These are things that get a real climber going. Some climbers are in it for the trees; some are in it for the money (such as it is). But, a few of us do it for the thrills. Pecans are for us. As much as I might complain, I really enjoy doing something that few people can. I get great views and, usually, nice breezes. These early spring jobs don't provide much shade, but in the summertime, I have shelter from the sun, as well. In late October and early November, pruning a pecan means all the nuts you can eat and a bag or two to take home for pie or pralines. And, since they like to grow near lakes and rivers, sometimes we get to see interesting birds and other wildlife.These crested something-or-others (the client told me what they were, but I'm a tree guy, not a birder) hung out all day near our last pecan job. There was also a red-tailed hawk in the area. I enjoyed watching and hearing it on and off for a few days.

I've been sitting on these photos a few weeks now--if anyone is actually following this blog, they may have noticed my long absence (sorry, I got down after that HEB mess). Today, the trees above are probably either covered in catkins, or fully leafed out, or both. I missed out on the shade on this job, but my sunburn is healed and I enjoyed the wide open skies while I was working.

UPDATE: If you've been wondering about the trees I reported on last time, I have learned more. I sent photos to the City Arborist, and he told me there will be penalties for the damage done. Austin has an ordinance requiring a certain number of trees per 'x' parking spaces. Even though the parking lot has been there for decades, they still have to comply with the ordinance. It is only slightly more consolation than before, since the trees are irrevocably damaged, but I hope the penalties will send a message to the property manager that this kind of shoddy work will not be tolerated. As much as I might like to see them paying top dollar for premium work, I will be satisfied knowing that at least they will be motivated to find a reasonably qualified company for future tree work.

Incidentally, the guys did go back to paint their wounds. They painted oaks, elms, and sweetgums. They managed to skip the sycamores. They painted everything they could reach from the ground (more or less) but didn't get the upper canopies. All things considered, this is not a big concern to me. But it's one more piece of evidence that these guys do not know what they are doing.

Hacks!

2009-02-17T14:55:00.000-08:00

I've been on an odyssey for the past two days to find out who is responsible for the horrendous tree hacking that went on last week at Hancock Center. This shopping center, at 41st St. and Red River, has a huge parking area with City-required medians planted with trees. A few of the trees have been there for decades and are quite sizable; most were planted a few years ago as part of a major mall overhaul.

Now, I do not expect shopping centers to hire the best arborists in town to maintain their trees. I wish they would, but I know they are going to look for a low bid and focus more on clearances and safety than on proper tree care. But this project hits a new low for the worst in tree care.

I do not believe there is a single industry standard that was not violated on this project. Flush cuts were the norm, but in some cases they went beyond to inexplicably bad cuts. The trees were routinely lifted beyond the industry standard of 1/3 trunk and 2/3 canopy--most are closer to 3/4 trunk and 1/4 canopy. Several crape myrtles were topped, which I've already noted is common, but at least one live oak was topped, as well. The range of flaws in the cuts is staggering--everything from flush to stubs to just random angles. The workers frequently overshot their cuts, resulting in nicks and gashes in the stems of the trees. And, even though they were doing this work at the beginning of oak wilt season, none of the wounds on the oak trees was painted (a basic oak wilt control measure that every arborist and even most hacks know about in Austin).

I saw this damage yesterday when I dropped in to the mall for lunch. Thus began my odyssey. A call to HEB, the magnet grocer at the center, gave me the name of the property manager, Regency Centers, and the person responsible for the account, Korinne Clark. I left her a phone message yesterday, and another this morning. I then called the general switchboard for her office and left a message with a secretary. A little more googling found me Ms. Clark's supervisors, who I e-mailed. I also reported what I had seen and e-mailed some photos to the city arborist.

I was feeling likeRegency was avoiding me, but this afternoon, I finally got a call from Ms. Clark. She told me the work was performed by a Houston company (where she is based), Center Services. She told me they had subbed out the work to someone else. I next tried to find Center Services in Austin (if that's you, sorry for the erroneous phone message--that's what you get for choosing such a generic name, I guess). But then, a little while later, I got a call from the company owner at Center Services. He seemed genuinely upset at the results of this project. He used some of his employees, who had previously worked for a tree service in Houston, and who had "trimmed" some trees in Houston without hearing any complaints (no surprise there--see my earlier post "I don't like Ike"). He vowed never to "trim trees" again, and stick to what he knows.

I suppose this is a small victory, but, sadly, the damage to the trees at Hancock can't be undone. The Center Services guy said he sent his boys back to paint the oak wounds. It's too late to make any difference (by now, the tree has sealed off the injured vascular tissue), but at least it won't send the wrong message to the public that painting is unnecessary. I'll be curious to see if they can correctly identify the oaks among all the trees thay damaged. The Center Services guy offered to do any other chemical treatments to correct the damage. But there is no such remediation. Trees do not work like animals. They have no immune system, they cannot heal wounds, and they cannot regenerate lost tissue. They can only limit the spread of decay through various chemical and physical barriers (CODIT). Unfortunately, the numerous flush cuts made on this project removed the branch collars, which form the strongest defense the tree has against spread of decay (wall 4). Some of these trees will probably die due to loss of energy-generating tissue. The ones that survive will probably begin to fall apart in a decade or two, due to the fact that they were not able to quickly seal off the outside exposure represented by these wounds. The mall will lose some property value (trees provideup to ten percent higher property values--some estimates go up to twenty percent), will have to replace the asphalt surface sooner (the shade of trees protects pavement against degradation), and will likely deal with claims from shoppers whose cars are damaged by falling branches or whole trees. The City will lose some money because it has to treat more storm water (trees absorb runoff and clean water), will be more likely to face federal management of vehicle emissions (trees clean pollution from the air [link requires Adobe Acrobat Reader], delaying such mandates), and will be hotter (trees reduce the heat island effect). And, though the effect on this one site is probably pretty small, the increased need for air conditioning may contribute to the City's need for new power production facilities (Austin owns its own electric utility).

I reported all of this to the City Arborist, but I suspect there is nothing he can do. City ordinances require these median trees to be installed during construction and maintained for two years, but I 'm pretty sure two years have passed. Ordinances also protect trees at least 19 inches in diameter at breast height, but I don't think any of the affected trees is that large (maybe one or two are). So all we can do is continue to educate people about the consequences of bad tree work. Tell your friends.

Lichen

2009-02-11T15:53:00.000-08:00

After ball moss, the most frequent question we hear that is not really a problem relates to lichen. Lichen often grows on trees, but also turns up on rocks or pretty much anything else where conditions are right. Lichens are a symbiotic organism made of algae and fungi. The alga makes energy through photosynthesis, while the fungus provides water and minerals from the substrate. The most common lichen in our area are thin, gray sheets. This is what people often see low to the ground, especially in deer-prone areas, where the protruding parts may become snacks for the local fauna.

But when you get higher in the canopy, you see all kinds of sizes, shapes, and colors. Well, several kinds. When you prune a tree, you have a lot of time to sit and look at the small stuff.

Sometimes you see splash cups, which help to distribute spores.

In the end, I'm more of an arborist than a biologist, so I just like to look at the pretty forms.

Today, it also happens to be time for redbuds to start blooming. Unfortunately, blogger doesn't seem to like so many pictures. Sorry for the random layout.

Molting season

2009-01-28T13:22:00.000-08:00

I recently got a call from a client who was concerned about her tree because a large section of bark was flaking off. My first instinct was, "Uh-oh." When plates of bark come off a tree trunk, it usually means someone ran into it with a car, or hit it with something, or maybe that the underlying wood was rotting. I was quite relieved to find it was a Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis).

All trees shed bark. Unlike animals, trees do not grow in a scalar fashion. Instead, they get longer from the tips of their branches, while secondary growth over time increases the diameter of the wood. This means that we can put a nail in the tree trunk four feet above the ground and come back years later to find it is still four feet high (assuming the grade has not changed). It might be buried deep inside the wood, but a determined search would reveal that it has not climbed any higher. So, the sheet of bark around the stem must crack apart and crumble away over time. It's like a strip of paper wrapped around a balloon. If you blow up the balloon, it will get larger and tear open the paper.

Most people do not notice this phenomenon. It usually happens gradually, with small chunks of bark breaking free here and there, leaving little or no visible sign they were ever there. The underlying bark looks the same as the piece that came off. But Sycamores are unusual in two ways. First, large plates of bark come loose all at once. Second, the inner bark looks quite different than the outer bark. Over time, a mature Sycamore changes from dark and chunky, like most trees, to thin, white sheets that are later shed in flakes.

It's a large part of what give a Sycamore its unique character, but can be rather shocking to the people who live with the tree every day. When caught midstream, the bark loss looks quite bad and leads some people to call their arborist for a look.

But, happily, there is no cause for concern. The tree is doing what comes naturally, and later will be almost entirely white. If you see your Sycamore showing signs of this molting, enjoy the process and don't worry about calling for help.

A rare opportunity

2009-01-26T15:49:00.001-08:00

This weekend I was lucky enough to be included in a project to prune the Treaty Oak, organized by the Texas Chapter of the ISA and Austin PARD. Our team in the tree was myself, Nevic Donnelly, Guy LeBlanc, and Keith Brown. There was a fifth climber who works for the City, but I'm sorry to say I did not get his name. We had ground support from two more City PARD employees, PARD Forestry Director Walter Passmore, and Don Gardner. It was a cold, blustery day, but I dressed for it and didn't suffer much. Walter set some high bars to climbers who wanted to take part: several years of ISA Certification and climbing experience, and/or experience climbing the tree in the past (I don't remember all the details, but there weren't all that many arborists in town who qualified).

I qualified on both counts, since this was the second time I climbed this tree. I was working for another company who pruned it several years ago, maybe 1996. I'm pleased to say the tree seems to have improved in health since then. A funny thing about Live Oaks (Q. fusiformis) is that they tend to get very brittle when stressed. The worst cases I can remember were mostly ball moss jobs. Ball Moss is a funny little plant, related to pineapples (bromeliads), and not actually a moss. It clings to trees mostly, but sometimes it appears on power lines or most anything that will give it access to moist air. We generally leave it alone unless a client insists on removing it for appearance's sake. But when it gets so prolific that it covers entire branches, the tree loses the ability to start new shoots (stimulated by sunlight) and as a result can sometimes suffer. When we pick these trees, often just when the branch is almost clean, it breaks--mostly I'm talking about the small twigs, maybe 1/4"-1/2" in diameter, though larger limbs seem more brittle, as well.

That was the Treaty Oak a decade ago. There was little or no ball moss, but the stress of the poisoning and the subsequent loss of a large portion of its canopy had the same effect. Brushing past interior growth, which I do routinely, had to be done very carefully so as not to snap out excessive amounts of leaves and twigs. It was a long, challenging day.

Today, I think the tree is much stronger. I noticed a lot of bark tearing out around the base of cuts in the northwest section of the tree, but not much twig snapping. In the eastern section, I did not really encounter either of these problems. The biggest issue faced by the tree today seems to be squirrels. I used to think of squirrels as cute little fuzzy wildland critters. After 15 years of caring for trees, I have learned to view them as a scourge. We arborists often refer to them as tree rats. They chew bark off of branches, mainly at the point of attachment, until they either completely girdle and kill them, or until they are so weak that they have to be removed even if they are alive. Then the tree sends up clusters of new sprouts to replace them, which make nice baskets to hold the rats' nests. The nests trap moisture against the bark, which can lead to more problems. I knock them out whenever I can.

I left several squirrel-damaged limbs on the Treaty Oak that I would have cut on another tree, for several reasons. First, the tree might be stronger than it was, but we still treat it with kid gloves to avoid additional stress. Second, there was so much of this kind of problem that we would not be able to take it all in one pass even if the tree were stronger (generally, the recommendation is to take no more than one-third of a tree's live canopy at one time, but I try to avoid crossing the 25 percent mark except in rare cases, such as overmature Arizona Ash--Fraxinus velutina). Third, there were cameras and City staff and passersby everywhere, and I didn't want to set the example that it's okay to just rip out tons of green tissue--this is a common practice among poorly trained climbers, sometimes called lion tailing, which is very hard on trees.

So we removed the clearly dead branches and a few of the worst cases of live-but-squirrel-damaged limbs. We also took out a few live limbs that were rubbing on another branch. Like with the squirrel problems, there were too many rubbing limbs to take anywhere near all of them. But we did take the worst examples, since they can lead to open vascular wounds that could contract oak wilt or another disease. Finally, we removed part of a low branch that was growing over the top of the adjacent Treaty Oak clone, planted a few years ago. This smaller tree was meant to replace the sections of the large tree that were lost in the poisoning. By cutting back some select branches, we gave the smaller tree some breathing room and helped reduce the extent that it becomes misshapen over time.

All this, and we were out of the tree in time for lunch (the non-volunteer City crew had to stay and clean up). As a tree that has been maintained consistently for years, the Treaty Oak has a nice, open interior canopy that is fun to climb around in. I really enjoyed the day and hope I can get into the tree again before another decade passes.

Lady Bird's legacy

2008-12-31T08:09:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-12-30T11:56:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-12-26T17:12:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-20T10:42:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-15T11:45:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-12-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

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.