JANUARY 28, 2010 ISSUE
Got Damaged Trees?
Trees in the High Country shuttered from another blanket of ice that covered them last week, but luckily the damage was minimal.
The storm on Christmas Day 2009, though, did plenty of damage and now that the snow has mostly melted, it’s time to start cleaning up the aftermath.
Limbs are on the ground or hanging limply in the trees, while some trees have already fallen.
If you’re looking out the window and wondering what to do, Forget-Me-Nots’ owner Bob Gow is here to help. Here are five questions that Gow answered to ease some of your concerns.
1. If part of the tree was damaged in the storm, do you cut it down or leave it alone?
Gow said he’s seen the most damage to maple and white pine trees. Even if those trees had half of their limbs broken away by the ice, he wouldn’t suggest taking the chainsaw and cutting the entire tree down.
“Obviously, [taking the tree down] would be extreme,” he said. “I would really resist [tearing it down] unless the tree was planted in a place in which it was giving problems.”
Trees have already started the healing process after the ice storm and are trying to heal the damaged area, he said.
Gow said to be patient with trees and give them a chance to heal on their own. While it may not be beautiful right now, spring’s leaves are coming in a few months and the tree could look better and have more character in a year’s time.
2. What’s the most important thing to do when trying to fix the damage?
Don’t just take a saw out to that maple in the front yard and start hacking away without much concern for the tree, said Gow.
“The most important thing is not whether you cut the tree down or leave it standing but making the right kind of cut,” Gow said.
That is simpler than it sounds.
Don’t cut too close to the trunk, as that damages the inner tissue of the tree and doesn’t allow for the natural healing of the tree.
And don’t leave too much of a stub either, but make the cut a “little outside of flush” to the trunk, Gow said.
“If you can’t make a good cut, then let nature handle it,” he said. “A bad cut is going to make for a situation that is worse than you have.”
3. The ice hurt the conifers; what do you do to those?
Some conifers in the area weren’t toppled by the ice but part of their trunks split due to the winter weather.
If this happened to one of your fir trees, Gow has an easy way to help.
He said to just take twine and loosely wrap it around the trunk in order to hold it together. But don’t make the twine too tight, Gow said, because you want to allow air circulation in the tree.
Or you can place four or five stakes in the ground—in the tree’s foliage to get the stakes close to the trunk—and wrap the twine around the stakes.
This is also something you can do for trees that are simply bent over to help straighten them out. You could also leave those trees alone and let them straighten up on their own, which could also happen, depending on the tree, said Gow.
4. Should fertilizer be used to speed up the healing process?
The thought might be that fertilizer will make the tree heal quicker.
Gow is adamant that it won’t.
“That’s as bad or worse than a bad cut,” he said. “They’ll put all of their energy into responding to the fertilizer and not into growing the damaged parts of the tree, which is the normal tree response.”
5. Do you let nature take its course on the dangling branches or break out the saw?
You might have a limb high in a tree that is broken and you can’t get to it.
While climbing the tree or using a tall ladder to reach that dangler is an option, you can also leave it and let the wind blow it down.
“There’s a reaction to nature doing it and a reaction to humans doing it,” Gow said. “My response is, if you can saw it, just try to make a good cut.”
There are plenty of tree service companies in town that can be called to come in and look at the damage and help you with the clean up.
Whatever you do, Gow said not to worry too much about it.
“The main thing is not to worry about it and not to get hung up on it being right,” Gow said. “Do what you’ve got to do. It’s kind of like raising kids—find the middle ground and move forward.”
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