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In "The Garden Primer" (Damrosch), p 422:
Apple borers can also kill the tree outright just by tenneling in through the trunk [...] Painting the trunk with white latex paint diluted to 50 percent will make it easier to spot the sawdust residue produced by the larvae's tunneling.
Similar advice is in the Fedco Trees catalog; they suggest mixing white ...
17
These look like the tree lichens that are growing on my own trees. A lichen is a composite organism where by a fungus lives together with an algae in a symbiotic relationship. They don't hurt the tree, and are more commonly seen on the bark of older trees where the bark is not constantly being shed and regrown. So, it may also be an indicator of poor health ...
15
Below are a few things I've picked up over the years:
Location.
It's generally recommended to stake trees planted on slopes and/or windy locations.
If a tree is planted in a well protected area (and on flat ground) staking shouldn't be necessary and is in fact discouraged ie Let the tree develop naturally.
Staking should not hold a tree so rigid that it ...
15
Lichens are considered to be neutral to tree health. They are not symbiotes or parasites. They just hang around..... ;)
However a tree in poor health may not be able to grow new bark faster than lichens can encrust it. Normally no control measures are necessary for lichen. Stimulating the tree by feeding, mulching, watering and applying a foliar feed ...
14
The sooner you get it in the ground the better (unless your ground is currently frozen or soon will be).
The more sun it gets the better (IMHO). At the moment you have a small tree, but when selecting an appropriate place to plant the tree take into account its final full grown size.
Measure from the bottom of the plastic wrap to the top of the soil. That is ...
14
when trees are painted white from bottom up to a certain level of the trunk it is called white washing or winter washing. the practice is most common in countries where real winters occur but not exclusively there. it's an effective method of reducing reinfestation of borers etc that either hide in trunk bark to overwinter or overwintering in soil to crawl ...
14
Should all trees be staked when they are planted?
First, you have to find out Why people stake trees. What benefits are there to staking young trees? In nature, trees can germinate, grow, and mature without being staked. Here are some reasons why young trees are often staked:
Promoted wind resistance: Anchor staking is useful in newly planted trees, ...
13
The roots of most trees are shallow (i.e., not more than 1' to 1.5' deep), but spread out very wide (see the picture below from here)
. Given the height of your trees, they're not very young and you can be sure that the roots spread at least as far out as the tree is tall. Add a factor of half to that for every 10 years of the tree's life. Note that this is ...
13
I live a long ways from Northern California but these symptoms are the same for citrus grown anywhere in the world when the soil is alkaline. There are some great pictures here.
The most likely cause is a manganese deficiency
Leaves turn yellowish overall but larger veins remain slightly green
where manganese is deficient. Zinc deficiency symptoms are ...
11
The Victoria Plum is self-fertile and, although cropping can be improved by a compatible pollination partner, it should fruit satisfactorily without one.
There are a number of possible reasons why your tree is not producing any fruit:
It may be too young; plum trees usually start cropping when they are 4 or 5 years old, depending on the rootstock that has ...
11
Unless the site is sheltered from the wind, I always stake my trees for the first two years - sometimes longer, depending on how well they have developed, and how exposed the site is - to give the trunk extra support while the roots are becoming established.
The are many different views as to the best type of support, but the one I prefer and would ...
11
Oak trees are well suited to bonsai, but that is not your biggest problem here.
You have two main problems: getting that thing out of the ground with its root system in tact and secondly getting it to survive once it comes out of the ground.
Getting the tree out of the ground, even though it appears small isn't an easy task. I can't find a reliable source ...
11
If it were me (having grown it from seed and looked after it for 20 odd years), I'd most definitely give it a further year in the ground, before making a final decision on removing it (fingers-crossed it won't come to that).
In the meantime I would:
Spread a 50mm layer of good quality compost all the way around it (about 1 to 1.5m diameter). This will feed ...
11
Alex Shigo pioneered the research which has shown that anything that covers a pruning cut works against the natural habits trees have to wall off injury. His works (Shigo, A. L., 1982 Tree Health in the Journal of Arboriculture 8 (12) and a New Tree Biology 1986 helped to show arborists a more effective way to prune.
The basic idea is that trees seal off ...
11
Consult a tree surgeon. If you want to save it, it might be possible to cable the top parts (not "tie a rope around") to keep it from spreading wider. Depending on the decay of the trunk, this might or might not make any sense to do.
Image from "ask this old house" website at:
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/asktoh/question/0,,1597909,00.html
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Although I haven't come across this problem myself, I have done some research and would say, judging from the first (smaller) photo, that this is probably a magnesium deficiency, to which citrus trees are fairly prone:
Mg -- Always on the oldest leaves first. Bottom center of the leaf is green, and the end and sides are yellow or orange, making an ...
10
We grow vegetables in an area about 16' square, in raised beds. Several years after we started, the garden became a disaster - we just couldn't get anything to grow well in most of the garden. Eventually, I figured out that some nearby Norway maples had taken over most of the soil - coming up from the bottom of the beds. For several years I kept digging ...
10
It's probably very hard to tell simply by looking at a tree, that otherwise shows no obvious indications of being weak, but here are a few things to watch out for:
I would be very skeptical of a tree that is perfectly straight (yours seems to be that way). It is a pretty good indication that the person who planted it trained it to grow straight by staking ...
10
Yes, heavy shade is fine. In fact, it may be better, because the pile will dry out slower.
The compost and its leachates will be good for the tree. I don't know about apples in particular, but the tree will grow roots up into the compost, and you'll need to keep cutting them. On balance, it still should be good for the tree. It's a minor nuisance. Don't ...
10
Improper pruning can shorten a tree's life. However you would have to work really hard to damage a willow with bad pruning. Here's why:
Willows grow fast
they will bud from old wood, even really old wood
they are a messy tree, commonly dropping leaves and branches
they are used to breaks or cuts in the branch structure
willows have been coppiced for ...
10
Time and flies will take care of the problem with you, if you can wait a couple of weeks.
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First, your Acer is not dying, it's just very unhappy. This is a common problem on Acer palmatum varieties here in the UK- usually, the cause is wind, that is, you've placed the plant in a spot which isn't sheltered enough. They hate windy areas, and they don't like hot midday sun in high summer either. What they do like is dappled sunlight, or morning sun, ...
10
Etiolation, or insufficient light strength, is a partial explanation - this tree is deciduous and normally would be dormant at this time of year. However, the process of thigmomorphogenesis is also missing. Thigmomorphogenesis refers to movement - when a plant is outside, particularly one with a tall, woody stem, it will be exposed to air movement. That air ...
10
Apple trees do well in clay. There are a few things you could do different next time:
do not put stones or other soil amendments in the bottom of the hole. If the planting hole has reached the clay sub soil or pan then plant it high or "proud" as described here.
The addition of organic matter provides little or no advantage to the
planting hole in ...
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I had a large (massive) Elm tree that had all the roots on one side cut about 6 feet from the tree due to an idiot plumber running a sewer pipe. This was a deep trench, too.
I used an in-ground water injector to pump root stimulator into the soil all around the tree base. I went around with a hose and penetrated the ground around the tree about 20 feet ...
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When you say 'recent', if that means within the last year, the only thing you need to do is keep it well watered during dry spells for its first 2-3 years. Hopefully you dug the soil over well and added organic composted materials prior to planting - if you didn't, you could mulch round the bottom of the tree with something like composted animal manure this ...
9
If you are fertilizing this tree, I'd recommend that you stop, it doesn't seem to need any more!
From what I can tell from the photos, it looks like this tree doesn't get full sun -- it looks like there are other trees that might be slightly shading it. This could cause some of the vigorous vertical growth that you see -- it's trying to get up into the sun. ...
9
It really comes down to the type of tree eg Fruit, Deciduous, Evergreen, etc then the specific species as to when is (considered) the best time of year to prune...
The same is true for plants.
As a very general rule of thumb, prune in:
Dead of Winter.
Or Spring (exact time during Spring will depend on what it is you're pruning) through to early Summer.
...
9
There are a few common issues with citrus grown indoors.
I have seen them get 5 or 6 feet tall indoors, we are talking a plant that wants to be a tree!
If it gets enough light indoors normally the environment is dry enough to encourage spider mites. Seeing your citrus webbed by mites is not a pleasant sight. Higher humidity discourages mites. Soap and ...
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Of the eight pictures only the third picture shows a cedar that will look good. The rest are either dead or so badly damaged it would take years before they looked good.
This kind of dieback is often seen when they are not adequately watered after planting or when stock is planted late in the fall and doesn't have a chance to root before winter.
...
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