The long summer days in Seattle and its neighboring cities are perfect for lounging in the shade of a beautiful tree. Make sure that your trees last for years to come by investing in some simple summer tree care! Here are some tips from the experts at Elite Tree Care:
Keep An Eye Out for Pests
Quite a few harmful pests are active during the summer, including Japanese beetles, magnolia scale, bagworms, tent caterpillars, emerald ash borer, aphids, and spider mites. Inspect your trees on a regular basis for bug colonies and bug damage.
Symptoms of pest infection include:
- Bug clustering on underside of leaves
- Egg masses—either brightly colored, or fuzzy and brown
- Dense, cottony deposits
- Deep holes in the trunk of the tree
- Loss of leaves
- Yellowing or chewed-on leaves
You may be able to scrape or spray off the bugs and their eggs as you encounter them. For more serious infestations, you may want to call in an arborist to identify the culprits, assess your tree for damage, and help you plan to manage or eliminate the pests in question.
Make Sure You Water Enough
When the weather heats up, it’s time to make proper watering of your trees a priority. Even though Seattle, Lynwood, and the Pacific Northwest as a whole gets a lot of precipitation, the comparatively drier summers combined with high temps can stress trees out, especially younger, less mature trees. If weekly rainfall is less than one inch a week, your trees will need some extra water from you.
Plan to water your trees in the cool of the morning or evening, instead of midday or afternoon when the heat will lead to evaporative water loss.
In the hottest parts of summer, you should water your tree two times a week (or three, for trees planted this season), and carefully monitor the moisture level of the soil around the tree. Calibrate your watering schedule and volume so that the water penetrates six to eight inches into the soil after each watering session. If you plant a new tree, you should water it every day for seven days, before switching over to watering three times a week
You’ll want to position the drip emitter or hose at least two or three feet away from the trunk of the tree. The tree’s roots can easily withstand wet conditions, but if its trunk gets too wet it can rot or develop disease.
Water should flow at a slow but steady rate for at least one hour. This slow rate of watering will allow the moisture to seep more deeply into the soil, making it available to the roots, instead of simply wetting the first couple of inches of dirt.
Fertilize
Feed the trees! Urban environments, even shady neighborhoods in Bellevue and Kirkland, provide a lot more stressors to a tree than it would receive growing in a field or forest.
If you’ve noticed very little new growth on your trees this year, or yellowing or browning leaves, your tree is stressed and probably needs a fresh dose of fertilizer (along with the deep watering we talked about earlier). Regular fertilization supplies the tree with macro- and micro-nutrients that it needs to resist stress and disease.
Add Mulch
Mulch prevents weeds from germinating, insulates the ground from the summer heat, and protects the roots of the tree from heating up too much (which causes stress).
It also increases water retention in the soil, meaning that the tree stays hydrated because the soil isn’t drying out too fast.
There are many types of mulch to choose from. Gravel and rock are popular landscape mulches, but not mulches we recommend for near trees—they conduct heat into the soil they cover instead of mitigating it, plus they also release radiant heat up into the canopy of the tree—a surefire recipe for a heat-stressed tree.
Instead of gravel and rock, use organic mulches around your trees. These mulches were once part of living organisms, and they mimic the mast and leaf litter that lines the floor of natural forests. Organic mulches hold water, reduce soil temps, and break down over time, becoming a part of the soil beneath and adding valuable matter and structure to the soil around your tree.
When you apply mulch, make sure to lay it down in a ring around the tree. Leave about eight inches of space between the mulch and the trunk of the tree, and make sure that the mulch reaches all the way to the drip line that waters your tree.
Spread the mulch in an even layer that is three to five inches deep—it will shrink down over time as it begins to break down. Don’t over-apply mulch; a layer that is more than five inches will start to trap heat, plus provide habitat for pesky bugs and rodents.
Bark chips and shredded cedar mulch are two more popular options, and these mulches is very effective at holding in water and keeping the ground from getting too hot. Bark chips are also not likely to blow away, thanks to the large size of the chips, so it’s an excellent choice for windy areas.
Pine needles and grass clippings are two types of mulch you may be able to source for free. If the tree in question is a conifer of some kind, then simply let its needles lie where they fall on the ground around it—these trees are practically self-mulching. If you’re concerned about grass clippings blowing away, simply spray them down after you’ve laid them out as mulch as they dry they will lock together into a single layer.
Tree Trimming
Bring in an arborist to inspect and, if necessary, perform structural pruning on your tree.
- This type of pruning addresses
- Crossing branches
- Dead wood
- Cracked wood
- Weakly attached branches
If you make the time and effort to take care of these issues before any winter weather rolls in, you vastly reduce the risk of incurring weather-related damage to the tree. You’ll also help prepare it for next season by removing wood and branches it doesn’t need and allowing it to redirect its energy into new growth and foliage the following spring.
Conclusion
Trees that receive a little extra care in summer will be happier, healthier, more beautiful and enjoyable specimens. Hopefully our tips gave you some ideas on caring for trees in Seattle this season!
If you want more help and expert advice from ISA-certified local arborists, give us a call at (425) 350-6909 to schedule your free consultation! We work in the entire Puget Sound area, including Kirkland, Woodinville, Bothell, Lynnwood, Everett, and Seattle.