Early Summer

Summer has landed! It always seems to come unannounced. There will be months of rain, this winter/spring was exceptional, and then... Shazam! Sun!
Roses and daisies are doing their thing. The growth on the trees and shrubs is evident and nearly completed its most pronounced flush of growth for the year. Though they will continue to grow, there metabolism is slowing for some.
Now is a great time to prune shrubs and hedges.  
For trees, this time of year the tree bark is less supple and there is less chance of inadvertent injury to the bark while working on more ornamental trees like linden, styrax, beech.  You'll notice trees that "bleed" or drip a lot after pruning won't have the tendency to do. 

If you have planted new trees this season please keep the water plenty.  Newly planted trees can't be water like a lawn. They need deep yet infrequent watering.  I recommend 5 gallons of water per inch of diameter 3 times per week for the next year.  It'd be a shame to let the new tree perish because of a simple task like watering. Your trees are valuable.

For those of you that are waiting to plant in the fall and need a few suggestions, do check out the site GreatPlantPicks.org  Super site with trees and plants for our area.

Poplar Removals

We had to remove several large Lombardi Poplars. The reason for removal was because of large wounds in the upper canopy.

Trees generally have the ability to close or compartmentalize wounds. Some species are much more apt at it than others. Poplars are very poor at this "self-sealing" of wounds.
The wounds in these trees were below about 30-40 ft of sound wood. This is problematic especially when the tree is exposed to high winds. The weight of the sound wood, combined with the water and leaf weight of itself moving in the wind, adds significant force to an already weakened area.
The risk of keeping the trees in such a suburban setting was not acceptable.
We were originally called to prune the trees for maintenance of cleaning the dead branches. While pruning we discovered the structural problems.

Please have your trees inspected. Proper tree care can reduce risk and potentially prevent stem and tree failures before they happen as in this case.