Introduction
Newly planted trees are like children who need a lot of extra care. Since they are growing and vulnerable you need to take extra measures to ensure their protection. If you’re worried about your trees, you can call in professionals by searching for “tree service near me”, or DIY your way through it. Here’s how you can protect newly planted trees:
The Methods
- Mulching – After you plant your new tree, make sure to mulch the soil properly to maintain the vitality of the tree and also improve its health. If you use wood chip mulch you can boost growth within the first couple of years since the roots are protected from harsh weather. With proper mulching, you don’t have to worry about the soil drying up or invading weeds and grass growth to compete for nutrients.
Since the mulch creates a visible boundary there are also fewer chances of damage to the new tree from weed trimmers and lawnmowers. Make sure that the wood chip mulch is at least a few inches thick and stretches across a few feet in diameter. It’s also important to not overdo it and keep the immediate area around the base of the tree free from a mulch mound. When you pile mulch against the tree, you won’t be able to know if voles and mice burrow through and ringbark the tree.
- Prune with caution – When you’re landscaping with new shrubs and trees, some will get damaged during transportation and handling. You can remove the damaged branches by pruning. However, you should maintain caution while doing so. Branches on the lower end make vital food for the tree and shouldn’t be removed. Keep a close watch on the tree and after a year you can prune branches that are dead or crossing. Crossing branches should be removed since they rub against the bark of one another and can cause damage during high wind speeds. If there is no need for pruning, avoid it. Let the plant grow for a few years and then you can prune it to take care of the aesthetics.
- Don’t overwater – Water is necessary to sustain any form of life and the same goes for plants. But if you aren’t careful, you can kill your tree. If you have soil that has high clay content, it doesn’t allow water to drain properly. While newly planted trees need a lot of water, they shouldn’t get more than an inch every week during the growing seasons. That’s why you need to restrict watering your trees to twice a week. There is no need for an automatic irrigation system that waters the plants for half an hour every day. That’s an absolute way of killing your newly planted and probably expensive trees.
- Don’t wrap the trunk – When you ask for newly planted tree protection tips from somebody a lot of them may recommend wrapping tree trunks for protection against rodents, freezing, scalding, mowers, and more. However, it does quite the opposite. Wrapping the trunks may offer little to no protection and instead may cause or hide many problems. If you need to wrap the tree to claim your nursery warranty, that’s a different issue. Otherwise, there is no need for such steps. You can wrap the tree during its first winter in your yard, but make sure to completely remove it after that. If you leave the tree wrapped during the growing season, it can easily girdle the trunk as the tree expands in size.
- Protect from the wind – If your newly planted tree is in an open and windy part of your yard, you need to protect it from strong winds. For trees with large canopies or a loose root ball, you may need temporary staking. You can stake the trees loosely for half a year till the trunks thicken and get strengthened enough. Hammer a few stakes into the soil equally spaced from each other right outside the root zone. After that, you can tie the stakes to the trunk with soft straps, or a material that doesn’t damage the bark. Alternatively, you can also get a windscreen to protect the tree.
- Use a repellant – While nature and its elements can damage your newly planted tree, so can wildlife. During the winter season, most animals wouldn’t be active enough to damage your tree. However, when the temperature is above the freezing point, you should use repellent liquid on the trunk and branches of your tree. Wild animals like deer will stand on their hind legs to reach tall branches if necessary. Hence, you can’t miss out on spraying the high areas. You also need to allow the repellant to dry for a day so that it can provide you long-lasting protection.
Keep in mind that these repellants aren’t cheap. So, you need to be economic in your approach. If you have a few trees that need protection, you can use the ready-to-use liquid that comes in a bottle. However, if you have a large property or have taken on a big landscaping project, it’s better to buy the powder concentrate and make your own spray. Make sure that you buy a weather-resistant repellant that can handle the onslaught of sun, snow, and rain.
- Erect a physical barrier – A physical barrier is one of the best ways to protect your trees from wildlife. You can do it with mesh wire used for chicken cages or with hardware screening. You also need to account for small animals like rabbits. So, the barrier shouldn’t have any gap that is more than two inches in width and should also be at least three feet high so that rabbits can’t jump inside.
Conclusion
Now that you know about all the dangers to your newly planted trees and their respective solutions, it’s time to execute them. If things get too difficult and eat away too much of your time you can leave it to the pros by searching for “ tree service near me”.