Hug a Tree

A Gardener’s Refuge

By Amy McDowell

“Sometimes I walk into my front yard and I can feel all my trees just vibrating love.” --Oprah Winfrey.

I was delighted to read that, for I have felt that same powerful energy emanating from trees. It’s like a buzzing in the air that you can only sense when you are alone and your soul is quiet and peaceful.

Once while I was attending a horticulture conference, a speaker told the crowd—perhaps 700 of us—to go home and hug a tree. My first reaction was a light smile, and then a lift of my eyebrows when the speaker told us he was not joking. Seriously, he said, hug a tree.

Determined but feeling bashful, I waited until the next day. Although my back yard was pretty well isolated from the neighbors, I stepped out timidly and glanced around. A gorgeous white oak was the closest. I looked up to the canopy of branches and my breathing slowed. I felt a deep, sincere reverence for all living things and the fantastic energy that connects us all.

Touching the rough bark, I wondered whether the tree sensed my presence. I know that it did. Reaching my arms around, I hugged the tree and rested the side of my face on the trunk. Tears of emotion surged suddenly and crested at the edges of my lower eyelids. I released the tree and took a step back, breathing deeply. It seemed my slow breaths drew not just oxygen, but a quiet energy into my soul.

I urge you to go outside and hug a tree. Shrug off those trivial “I feel silly” thoughts and instead think about yourself and the tree. Try to take in the reach of that tree—its branches extending into the heavens, and its roots stretching out from the trunk to a distance two and a half times the height of the canopy.

Gardening is about recognizing our alliances with all things. Abandon your fantasies of gaining control and welcome a new harmony into your garden.

Arbor Day

Plant a tree for Arbor Day

By Amy McDowell

Each spring, Arbor Day slips by quietly without a lot of fanfare—getting none of the publicity that a holiday like Groundhog Day receives. Part of the problem is that Arbor Day varies by region; it’s scheduled to coordinate with different planting seasons in each area. In Iowa, Arbor Day is officially the last Friday in April. That’s April 27 this year. However, to further complicate things, many Iowa communities designate their own Arbor Day to coordinate with local tree planting activities. If we had a set Arbor Day printed on our calendars each year, it would be much easier to keep track and make plans to buy a tree.

If you are planning to plant a tree this year, here are three terrific trees to consider for your landscape.

American Hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana) is sometimes called “muscle wood” because the smooth blue-gray bark resembles rippling muscles. They’ve also garnered the nickname “ironwood” because the hard wood is extremely strong. Hornbeams have dark green leaves and terrific red, orange or yellow fall color. They are adaptable to the heavy clay soil here in central Iowa, and they’ll even tolerate wet sites. Hornbeams produce tiny nutlets that birds enjoy. They grow well in full sun or heavy shade, and they have an upright rounded canopy. Hornbeams are a small shade tree, topping out at about 25 feet high and wide when full grown.

Silver Linden (Tilia tomentosa) are stunning shade trees that are even more spectacular when the wind blows. The glossy dark green leaves are silvery underneath, and the trees twinkle in the breeze. The silver in their name is both for the silver undersides of the leaves and the smooth light gray bark, which makes them beautiful year round. Silver Lindens have good yellow fall color, and are tolerant of air and salt pollution. When mature, their broad canopy can reach 60-70 feet high and 30-40 feet wide.

Kentucky Coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus) are gorgeous large trees that sometimes suffer a stigma because of the 8-inch-long bean pods they produce. Kentucky Coffeetrees are immense and stately when mature at 60 feet high and 40 feet wide, and raking the bean pods is no more arduous than raking leaves. The foliage is dark bluish green during the summer and yellowish in the fall. Kentucky Coffeetrees have attractive rough bark and are free of disease or insect problems.

Most people agree it’s important to help one another; to touch other people’s lives in some positive way. Planting trees is a way to help everyone and to touch the earth in a positive way.

Trees and Construction

Building your dream home on that wooded lot

By Amy McDowell

Wooded residential lots cost thousands more than treeless lots, but if those trees aren’t protected during construction, they can be severely damaged. Often the damage isn’t visible and the slow physiology of trees means they may live for four to seven years after construction crews have left the site, slowly spiraling into decline and finally death.

Soil compaction from heavy equipment and building materials is the most common damage. Ninety percent of a tree’s roots are within the top twelve inches of soil. Soil compaction may crush or tear the fine roots, but the loss of air space within the soil profile can be long lasting and even more devastating. Soil organisms can take decades to loosen compacted soils and return them to a healthy environment for tree roots.

The most important step to protecting the trees on your building lot is to ring them with a barrier that is not easily moved by construction crews. Metal stakes and bright orange snow fence works well. Place the barrier at least one foot from the base of the trunk for every inch of trunk diameter. For example, a tree with a two-foot diameter trunk must have a barrier at least 24 feet from the trunk.

Even after construction is complete, continue to guard the root zone. Don’t let a finish grader add or remove soil within the barrier zone. If you seed or sod the new lawn, use care not to drown the tree by irrigating too frequently. After the turf is established, water no more than once or twice a week.

A three-inch-deep mulch ring around the tree will protect the trunk from mower and string trimmer damage, and the wider the ring the better it is for the tree’s roots. Some arborists say a mulch ring that runs clear to the drip line of the branches would be a tree’s dream-come-true, although they realize that much mulch is unrealistic for most homeowners.

For large construction sites with complicated traffic patterns around trees, you might want to consult with an ISA certified arborist on how best to protect the trees. Information is available at www.isa-arbor.com or 800-ISA-TREE.

How NOT to trim a tree

Tree Topping is a Tragedy

By Amy McDowell

“Forfeit his hand, he who beheads a tree.” John Evelyn, Sylva, published in 1664.

Those words were written 347 years ago, but incompetent morons are still topping trees today. My heart lurches with horror when I see a tree butchered like the one in this photo.

(Photo by Larry Costello)

Trees do need pruning from time to time, but they NEVER need a severe heading back or topping. In fact, a tree will never fully recover from being topped. It will scramble to replace all of that food-producing leaf surface, but the rapid new growth is always weaker.

“Don’t do big, drastic pruning once every 15 years,” says Dr. John Ball, a professor of forestry at South Dakota State University. “Tree care should be life-long and low-intensity.”

At a recent arborist conference, Ball shared his advice on tree care. Training young trees is ideal, because you can set them up to live a long and healthy life. Most often, however, people wait until the trees are mature and then prune them. “You cannot make a tree healthy by making it smaller,” writes Dr. Alex Shigo. And over thinning the canopy, says Ball, is like bleeding a tree to death. “Branches are independent, not parasitic. Each one must produce its own food.”

ISA Certified Arborists can look at a tree and recognize what to prune. You can trust that an ISA Certified Arborist will do what is best for the tree. They sometimes laugh that their clients expect to see a huge pile of tree trimmings when they are done working. A trustworthy arborist is one who is most concerned with the safety and health of the tree and not concerned about creating a large pile of brush to impress their clients.

There are more than two dozen ISA Certified Arborists in and around the Des Moines area. You can find arborists in your area by visiting www.TreesAreGood.com.

I’d like to thank Dr. John Ball of South Dakota State University for the inspiration for this column. The photo, taken by Larry Costello, was provided by the International Society of Arboriculture.

Fall Color

Raging Red and Flaming Orange

Bold fall colors for your garden

By Amy McDowell

Iowa is blazing with spectacular fall color. You still have time to plant some color in your garden this year. Take a trip to your local garden center and take a look at the vibrant rainbow of warm colors available in trees and shrubs.

Some of the most glorious trees right now are the red and sugar maples decked out in red and orange, and the white and green ashes wearing fall purple and golden yellow hues. Red maples (Acer rubrum) mature to about 40 to 60 feet tall with a rounded canopy. Sugar maples (Acer saccharum) reach 60 to 75 feet tall and tend to be taller than they are broad. Red and sugar maples turn to stunning reds and oranges in the fall. White ash trees (Fraxinus americana) will generally color to royal purple in the fall and green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) will turn vibrant golden yellow. Depending on the variety, ash trees range from 40 to 70 feet tall.

At the garden center, you will find named varieties of maple and ash trees. Named varieties are essentially clones sharing the same genes. The advantage to a clone is that you can be guaranteed genetic traits such as spectacular fall color. Trees grown from seed are genetically diverse and fall color will vary from one plant to another.

If you are thinking about planting shrubs rather than trees, take a look at the intense colors of sumac, burning bush, fothergilla, viburnum, and witch hazel. Sumac (Rhus typhina) is the brilliant red you see along roadsides right now. It is a suckering shrub, so it forms a loose mound about 15 feet tall and about as wide as you will allow it to spread. Burning bush (Euonymus alatus) will stay in bounds at about ten feet high and wide. It is often used as a hedge, and can be kept to a more compact height if you prune it. Fothergilla (F. gardenii) will mature to around four feet and colors to a fiery red-orange-yellow combination in the fall. Viburnums (V. species) are Iowa natives, so they are tough and resilient. To choose a viburnum with great fall color, buy them right now. They turn shades of red and orange, but some species are bold while others are bland. Witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) is another red shrub you may see on roadsides right now. It will grow to about eight feet tall and ten feet wide.

Finally, there is the fierce red maple that is too short to be a shade tree, but pretty tall to be a shrub. It is the amur maple. You will see drifts of these along Iowa’s roadways that have been planted by the Department of Transportation. The stunning amur maples (Acer ginnala) often have a multi-stem trunk and grow to about 18 feet tall.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has an associate’s degree in commercial horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County.