About Tree Care

Tree care sometimes involves pruning, as in the case of this decorative bonsai.

Tree care involves all the stages of tree growth, from protecting a delicate sapling to ensuring healthy development to any necessary pruning as the tree fills out. Particularly if your tree produces fruit or flowers, care may also include fertilization to spur robust development. Depending on where the tree is located, you may also need to adopt a particular watering schedule or make soil amendments to ensure the environment is well-suited to the species' needs.

Watering

How much and how often you water your tree will largely depend on the particular needs of its species and variety. By planting a tree that's native to your area, you can ensure that it's already well-suited to the local precipitation. Exotic trees rarely require as intensive watering as other kinds of plants, such as vegetables. However, particularly right after planting, watering may be essential to your tree's health. As a rule of thumb, if you've recently planted a tree in well-drained soil, provide around 3 gallons of water per inch of the tree's trunk's diameter. Continue at this rate for several months. Watch for signs of moisture stress, such as leaf wilting or soil that forms hard clods.

Fertilizing

Depending on the type of tree you plant and the quality of your soil, it may improve your tree's health to provide regular applications of fertilizer. In most cases, it's best to spread fertilizer evenly over the soil surface, directly below the tree's canopy. However, if you are growing a tree on or near a lawn or a bed of shrubs or flowers, and you regularly fertilize these other plantings, it's typically unnecessary to fertilize the tree, separately. If you do fertilize, most trees respond well to fertilizers rich in nitrogen and potassium.

Pruning

Pruning a tree correctly can train it into a pleasing shape, improve its health, spur fruit and flower development and even restrict undesired growth. However, before pruning a tree, it's vital that you familiarize yourself with the species' particular needs. Pruning a tree at the wrong time in its annual growth cycle can cause serious damage and retard growth. Most trees respond best to pruning during their dormant period in late winter or early spring, before they begin springtime growth. As a rule of thumb, avoid pruning directly after spring growth has started. However, there are plenty of exceptions to these rules, making it imperative to learn the specific needs of a given species.

Protection

Providing the best possible growing conditions for your tree is the best way of limiting the effects of disease or damage from pests. As a secondary protective measure, familiarize yourself with the pests and diseases that most commonly attack your tree species and regularly monitor for any signs of deteriorating health. Boring insects and diseases such as canker can prove fatal to trees if left unchecked.

References

• University of Florida IFAS Extension; Community Tree Care; Edward F. Gilman; October 2003
• USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service: Tree Planting
• Texas A&M University: Follow Proper Pruning Techniques; Douglas F. Welsh, Everett Janne