Author: Keith Brown

Planting New Trees In Oak Wilt Sensitive Areas

Oak wilt is a serious problem in central Texas. It kills neighborhoods worth of trees at a time. Implementing control programs is crucial, but implementing programs to plant replacement trees is arguably more important. But, what kind of trees should be planted?
Continue reading Planting New Trees In Oak Wilt Sensitive Areas

Soil Restructuring. An Important Part of Tree Care.

Soil restructuring is one of the most powerful tools we have for tree health management. The idea is to till the soil; improving its structure will allow valuable air and water to more easily penetrate the soil. While fundamental in gardening theory, this task is not easy at the scale of a large tree.
Continue reading Soil Restructuring. An Important Part of Tree Care.

What is a Good Fast Growing Shade Tree for Austin and Central Texas? – Red Oak

What is the best fast growing shade tree to plant in Austin? Here is my answer: red oak. There are several factors that must be considered, and there are special precautions you need to take. No tree is fool proof. Continue reading What is a Good Fast Growing Shade Tree for Austin and Central Texas? – Red Oak

Part 4. Tree Fertilizer Products. What to Use.

There are a variety of tree fertilizers out there. Knowing which ones to use can be very confusing. And, to make matters worse, many quality tree friendly products are really “fertilizers” at all. Most of the products in the line I use for my companies treatment programs are alternative products (I don’t like the word “organic,” it is confusing to many and misleading). Here is a list of the products I think are the best:
Continue reading Part 4. Tree Fertilizer Products. What to Use.

Part 3. How to Apply Treatments to Trees

There are a variety of ways to apply tree fertilizers and other treatments. For the average layperson, applications to a tree can be challenging. High pressure sprayers are readily available at equipment rental stores, so you can do it yourself, but this equipment is not easy to use. Accessing a tree’s root system deep in the soil or reaching the upper boundaries of canopy on a mature tree requires this special equipment.
Continue reading Part 3. How to Apply Treatments to Trees

How to Plant a Tree

Planting a tree is slightly more complicated than digging a hole and sticking a tree in it, but not too complicated. Follow these quick tips and your new tree will be sheltering you from the sun in no time. And, by that, I mean in a few years.

The first step is to pick a tree, but that is another blog. Once you have the right tree it’s time to find the right place to plant it. The rookie mistake here is to look around at the ground to find your spot. LOOK UP! You want to find a place where adjacent trees’ canopies won’t be crowding your new tree too much. You want an open view of the sky from your planting spot.
Continue reading How to Plant a Tree

Tree Fertilizer, Part 2: When to Fertilize Trees

Timing might be the most important factor to successful tree fertilizer applications. Even if you use quality products you can injure a tree by providing the wrong fertilizer at the wrong time of year. I like to describe tree fertilizing by comparing to grass fertilization practices. You can fertilize grass virtually any time of the year with a variety of products and get the same results: greener grass and faster growth. This is because grass is in a constant state of growth (evident by weekly mowing needs). Trees are not in a constant state of growth, so you can’t apply a product at any time. Instead, trees go through a series of growth stages throughout the year.
Continue reading Tree Fertilizer, Part 2: When to Fertilize Trees

Tree Fertilizer Part 1. An Introduction.

Fertilizing your tree will provide a big impact to the health of your tree in both the short term and long term. More than pruning, more than any other tree care service. There is a lot to know about tree fertilizers. This article is meant to be an introduction to tree fertilizer. I highly recommend you read my three other articles in this series: When to Fertilize trees, How to Apply Fertilizers to Trees, and What Products to Use for Fertilizing Trees.
Continue reading Tree Fertilizer Part 1. An Introduction.

How Summer Heat Stress Affects Your Trees

Summer heat stress is one of the number one tree killers I run into. Okay, realistically no tree ever dies from just one problem, but rather a cumulative affect of many stress factors. Heat and drought stress are stress factor that almost all trees in the central Texas area deal with on an annual basis. So, if your tree has some other factor stressing it out, the summer heat might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I see more trees die during the summer time than any other time of the year.
Continue reading How Summer Heat Stress Affects Your Trees