4 Ways to Maintain Your Trees for Years of Enjoyment

When you maintain your trees properly, they add years of enjoyment to your surroundings. Trees add year-round color and variety to any landscape. If you grow fruit trees, they even provide you with delicious homegrown fruit. Is there anything better than a homemade pie made with fresh apples from your garden? Or some delicious cherries from your own tree?

To ensure that they continue to thrive, though, you must maintain your trees. Maintenance reduces the risks of issues during severe weather and ensures that they continue to grow under healthy conditions.

In the worst-case scenarios, you may even have to get rid of a cherished tree. Before that happens, continue to do your research into the particular type of trees in your yard to be certain they get the right care. In the meantime, here are some tips to help you maintain your trees for years of enjoyment.

Maintain Your Beautiful Trees with These Excellent Tips

Inspect Your Trees Carefully

First, check your trees regularly to see if they are healthy. However, this gets complicated, so consider having an expert to do this. Yet there are still things you can do yourself.

One question to ask yourself is if there is a dramatic reduction in the rate of growth. Another is seeing if there are any dead limbs or unusual colors on leaves or bark. These symptoms are indicators that a tree is unhealthy.

Trees in some areas may also get moss on them. So, instead of leaving it, get professional services like tree demossing in Longwood. These tree professionals will leave your trees looking fantastic!

Add Mulch to the Soil

Make sure that you add mulch to the base of your trees. This layer should be around one to four inches thick and consist of items such as wood chips or shredded bark, pine needles, shredded fall leaves, straw, or other biodegradable mulch.

Start about an inch or two from the base of the tree and extend it out to either three feet or the tree’s dripline (which is as far as the branches extend). The mulch not only protects your trees from lawn equipment, but they also suppress weeds and keep the soil moist.

Don’t Overwater or Fertilize

Trees planted in the previous 3 to 4 years may need some additional fertilizing or watering. But mature trees need less help and these actions may even cause damage. Lawn and garden herbicide applications also damage them.

If you live in an arid area, your trees may be used to dry conditions. Unfortunately, when you water these trees, you soak the ground and deprive them of oxygen which could result in either sick or dead trees.

The Cycle of Tree Pruning

You should prune only critical branches with newly-planted trees. That means only pruning those limbs that are dead or broken. Also, remove multiple leaders which results in one central stem. After that, you only need to trim your tree lightly in the second and third years.

Once you get to the fourth year and beyond, you only need to trim your tree every three years for form and function. As a rule, trim fruit trees every one to three years, deciduous trees every five years, and evergreens only when needed.

These tips are great for showing you how to maintain your trees. But, if you have any tips to add, please do so in the comments below. In addition, we’ve placed several links below for your further enjoyment of all things design.

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