Tree Tips

welcome winter weather

Best rain year in recent memory. And snow at the higher elevations!! Even with the cold weather most trees are popping and we only have a short window open to transplant beeches or hornbeams, boxwoods and conifers. Be careful with aftercare if the leaves are showing on your deciduous trees. Hopefully the cold snaps are over and we won’t have that to cause frost damage on new tender foliage.

root work

Continue on your elongating species like conifers. But don’t bare-root conifers. You could lose them. If there is any field soil it must be removed but if it is solid throughout, do half of it this year and the other half two years from now. The half you do this year will be able to support the tree when you clean out the other half in a year or two.

If ANY tree has a good solid root mass with radial roots and is free of field soil, don’t bare root it. Just cut back the exterior and bottom edges and clean the surface in a slant down from the trunk to the outside edge of the root mass but leave the healthy core soil alone. Be sure to cover this with new soil at the end.

Be sure to secure all trees in the pot with tie-down wires. If the tree is wobbly it will not develop lateral roots but will try to put down one or more tap roots again. Not what we want.

Broadleaf evergreens such as boxwoods and azaleas as well as junipers and pines are repotted in February and early March. Be careful but this year we can extend a little as the weather is cooler and the rains are still coming. Needle juniper is an exception - that can wait till May.

aftercare 

At this point, return your transplanted trees to a sunny location unless you have done major root work. The angle of the Sun is relatively low yet and it will warm and stimulate the roots and get them going faster. Rotate all trees every couple of weeks or at least monthly for well rounded growth. Do watch out for late frosts. The weatherman always has a curveball in his bag of tricks. 

You can be styling and wiring your conifers. Big bends are OK until about the end of March. Then you run the risk of detaching the cambium from the sapwood.

Don’t fertilize yet except for trees you want to fatten and young material in a pre-bonsai state. Not on mature trees you are refining.

Remember to continue your monthly fungal treatments, alternating different fungicides like copper, Mancozeb, Zerotol, Clearys 3336, Daconil, etc. You need to mix it up for all those nasty fungi.