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Consumer Advice Caring for Your Newly Planted Trees
Planting New Trees
• Although trees are very undemanding once established, they will need a great deal of care during their first season and may even need pruning. The younger and smaller the tree, the easier it will be to get established and the faster it will grow. Buying big, heavy standard trees will cost you a great deal more money but it may not buy you as much time as you expected. Among fast growing conifers, for instance, a two foot plant will catch up with a four foot plant within three or four seasons.
• Optimum time for tree planting is between October and March, when the tree is fully dormant, but containerised trees may be planted at any time as long as you ensure that they are kept well watered.
Staking and Tying Techniques
• In public places you will see trees protected by tall stakes, with ties up to their canopies. These are as much to protect the trees from vandals, as from wind. A tree trunk will thicken far more quickly, however, if it can flex and move in the breeze. The object is to keep the roots stationary, but will allow the trunk to flex and sway. Short stakes do the trick.
• Check regularly to ensure that the tie has neither worked loose, nor is too tight.
Pruning Trees
“Pruning is like sculpture – except you don’t have to be an artist to do it! As well as controlling the size and shape of your trees, pruning ensure that you gain maximum benefit from them”
There are many reasons for pruning trees.
• In a confined area, pruning will keep them to a convenient size.
• Pruning determines the shape of a tree, whether formally clipped, as with holly or yew, or trained into a special shape.
• Pruning reduces the risk of disease by removing infected growth and by cutting out malformed or badly growing branches.
• Pruning also insures that maximum air and sunlight reaches as much of the tree as possible.
Repairing Damage by Pruning
• Sometimes a gale, snow damage or simply an accident can break major tree limbs. If left hanging, or with ad fissures, disease may enter the tree.
• Begin by identifying the problem
• Remove cracked or split limbs and damaged material by making a clean cut.
• Assess the tree for balance. If necessary, remove a limb or limbs from the other side to repair the balance.
Weeping Trees
• Weeping trees have special needs. Sometimes they are grafted to the tops of standard stems – known as ‘topworked’ – but at other times they may grow on their own roots.
• When pruning or training a young weeping tree, make sure the main trunk is securely staked.
• Look out for unwanted suckers growing from the roots, below the graft, and remove these. They should be easy to distinguish from the weeping branches but, if in doubt, wait until they come into leaf since the difference will be more obvious by then.
• Thin out the hanging branches regularly, removing all weak ones and leaving the stoutest to form the main limbs
• Aim to create as wide a ‘tent’ as possible with the branches, so when carrying out further thinning, remove inner limbs.
Formal Pruning
• A number of trees lend themselves well to formal gardening. Yew is well known, not only as an excellent hedging plant, but also as a tree that can be clipped or sculpted into whatever size or shape is desired.
• Other trees well adapted to shaping are holly, box, hornbeam, beech, Portuguese laurel and surprisingly, camellia.
• When creating shapes, first build an outline, using a wood and wire netting frame, and erect this over the tree. As the branches grow through the frame, trim back to the wire. Once the shape is clear, remove the frame and cut annually to those levels.
Fruit Trees
• Plums, cherries, damsons. Pruning plums and cherries is risky business.
• Such diseases as silver-leaf invade through the wounds and can destroy a whole tree. If you can, therefore, avoid pruning them altogether. Pruning plums will not increase yield, since fruits are formed all along their branches, unless the tree has grown very old and its growth has become too dense.
• If pruning is absolutely necessary, do it in May, when the sap is rising, and the wounds will heal quickly.
• Apples and Pears Regular pruning is necessary with both apples and pears to promote heavy yields.
• In summer, prune the current year’s growth back to within 7 buds of the main stem. This will encourage more fruiting spurs to form.
• In winter, prune to tidy up the tree remove crossing or diseased branches and congested spurs.
General Rules
• Before you make your first cut, think how to go about it. Here are some important considerations:
• Know your tree. What species is it? What are its special needs?
• Have a clear idea of what you want to do, and what the ultimate desired shape will be. It is so easy to make a hasty cut, and then ruin the plant by trying to prune your way out of a mistake!
• Ensure you have selected the optimum time for pruning. For most ornamental trees, this will be during their dormant period in winter. Fruit trees are usually summer pruned as soon as their annual growth has finished – usually late summer/early autumn.
• The basic types of pruning are ‘heading back’ and ‘thinning’. With heading back, the ends of the branches are removed, stimulating buds into growth and producing a small dense shrub. Thinning involves removing entire branches back to the main stem, diverting energy to the remaining branches. This produces a large and open shrub. Correct pruning should ensure the end result that you require. “Formerly, it was recommended to cut branches flush with the tree trunk and coat the wound with a sealing compound. It is now known that such treatment increased the risk of disease. Cut branches a few inches away from the trunk – to ensure the smallest possible wound – leave the cut surface unpainted, so that it can dry quickly and callous over.”
Troubleshooting
• Trees blown over in the wind: Take time to assess the damage. Young trees can often be straightened up and then securely held in place with guy ropes while the roots repair themselves. Large, mature trees might be dangerous, propped up. If in any doubt, consult a reputable tree surgeon.
• Growing lop sided: Trees usually balance themselves in time but sometimes prevailing winds or other factors cause them to grow unbalanced. You may want to prune more heavily on one side than the other. Always remove whole limbs cleanly, rather than just hacking at the ends of branches.
• Caring for a very old tree: As trees near the end of their natural lives they need more attention, Keep removing dying timer, prune out water shoots so they need more attention. Keep removing dying timber, canopy and prevent ivy or other climbers from growing into the tree. There may be a sentimental attachment that makes you want to keep a tree hanging on but unless there is a sound reason, it is often better to remove it rather than cling to an ailing plant which is harbouring disease. “It helps to understand the life expectancy of a tree. Most ornamental cherries crab apples and laburnums, for example, are worn out by the age of 30 to 40. Mulberries, limes and oaks can go on for several centuries and yew might still be in their prime after 500 years.”
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