By Liberty Lawn Trees 0 Comments

Best Time of Year to Trim a Tree

No homeowner wants huge, wildly overgrown trees in their yard. They are unsightly and can even pose a danger to your home and vehicles, which is why tree trimming is the most common form of tree maintenance. Yet many homeowners are unsure of when is the best time of year to trim a tree, especially when advice from neighbors comes in well-meant but vague old adages like “Trees should be trimmed when the saw is sharp.” There is a best time and a worst time to trim a tree, and there is also a proper way to do it. Read on for some tree trimming facts to help you know how and when to trim your trees.

Why Trim a Tree

There are many reasons to keep your trees properly trimmed. Trimming helps maintain good tree health by removing damaged or diseased growth. It also increases safety by removing low-hanging branches that can inhibit pedestrians or block sight at the end of a driveway, as well as remove branches that hang over buildings and near electrical lines. Trimming can also help to increase the amount of air and light that penetrates to the inside of the tree, and to any landscaping below. Trees are also pruned for aesthetic reasons, to improve their looks or limit their growth. Homeowners can prune small trees themselves, using loppers and handsaws. Large trees, or any trees growing near electrical lines, should instead be pruned by professionals.

Best Trimming Time

Many homeowners don’t really know when to trim their trees to prevent problems. The best time to trim most trees is in late fall and throughout the winter months, while the tree is in dormancy. Trimming while a tree is dormant helps to minimize the risk of fungal infections, as the cut will heal quickly when trees being their vigorous growth in early spring. This is also the best time to trim evergreen trees, as spring growth will quickly cover signs of heavy or extensive trimming.

A few types of trees, such as magnolia trees, flower on wood grown during the previous year. Trimming at the wrong time can easily remove all the dormant buds, resulting in a non-flowering tree for the year. Any type of tree or shrub that bloom on old growth should not be trimmed in the fall, but instead just after they flower.

Worst Trimming Time

The only really bad time to trim a tree is in the spring when flower buds and new leaves are developing. Trimming a tree while the leaves are expanding disturbs the tree’s growth and causes it a lot of stress. If you see that buds on the tree are beginning to swell, leave it alone until the leaves have grown to their mature size. Then, if you need to trim before fall for safety reasons, it is safe to do so. Otherwise, it is best to wait until the tree is dormant, as trimming when the tree is still active will create a burst of new growth. This new growth is tender and more susceptible to becoming damaged in cold temperatures.

Trimming Techniques

There are different types of trimming techniques that professionals use in order to best address the needs of each tree. Cleaning refers to removing dead, dying, diseased, or poorly attached branches from the crown of a tree. Thinning involves removing selective branches in order to improve the tree’s structure, as well as to allow more air and light circulation. This technique helps to improve the shape of the tree, as well as to help unburden overheavy branches to reduce the risk of breakage. Raising is the removal of branches growing low on the trunk in order to allow room for pedestrians, vehicles, or buildings. Reduction refers to reducing the overall size of a tree through trimming. This is often done when trees are either close to or touching utility lines. This is best achieved by trimming back smaller branches throughout the tree, and is much more effective at maintaining the overall form and structural integrity of the tree than old-fashioned tree topping.

Emergency Trimming

Sometimes storms and strong winds can damage even the healthiest and well-trimmed trees. When a tree becomes damaged, it is important to trim it as soon as possible. Branches that become broken or have scrapes through the bark present an open invitation to disease and insects. Emergency trimming can be done any time of the year with little risk of damage to the tree’s overall health.

Treating the Cut

In the past, homeowners were often advised to paint or seal cuts left after trimming a tree, and many products came on the market for this purpose. These products claim that they must be used in order to sterilize or treat cuts, and while these products are still readily available, they actually do more harm than good. These products actually delay the tree’s healing process. Left alone, the tree will quickly grow a layer of cells over the cut, thus preventing the risk of disease or insect invasion.

No matter what type of trees you have, we are happy to stop by to give you a free estimate to determine your individual needs. Call our office today to make an appointment that best suits your schedule.

By Liberty Lawn Lawn 0 Comments

Fall Lawn Care

With winter weather fast approaching, now may not seem like a very important time to be performing much in the way of lawn care. However, it is in fact very critical to continue lawn care all the way through the fall months, as the cool and moist weather of fall help grass roots to develop far better than in the hot summer. Taking advantage of this growth spurt through proper maintenance now will help ensure a healthy start for your lawn when spring arrives. Here are some tips to help you make the most of the fall season.

Keep Mowing

Grass will continue to grow until morning frosts become regular. This means that you need to keep mowing your grass to its normal height until it is totally done growing: 2 to 3 inches for Midwest Bluegrass and 2.5 to 3.5 inches for Tall Fescue. Contrary to popular belief, taller grass does not protect turf from cold temperatures. Keeping grass too tall during winter months can actually promote diseases like snow mold, as well as increased vole activity.

Seed Bare Spots

Hot summer months can cause patches of your lawn to die, no matter how vigilant you are about watering. Now is the perfect time to fill in those areas with new seed, in order to give your lawn a head-start for spring. Make sure that the seed sits directly on top of the soil, and give it time to start growing in before the first frost.

Keep Watering

Fall showers don’t always provide all of the water that your lawn needs. Supplementing water as needed is important, even with cooler temperatures, so as not to stress your grass. A rain gauge can help you monitor how much rain water your lawn is getting, and whether or not extra watering is in order.

Consider Aerating

Watering, traffic, and heat all contribute to the compaction of your soil, which can cause browned or thinning grass in your lawn. Aerating your lawn involves removing plugs of soil in order to allow water and nutrients to get down deep and improve soil quality. It can be a big job depending on the size of your lawn, which is why we offer core aeration services. Simply call our office to set up an appointment for a free estimate.

Apply a Nitrogen-Rich Fertilizer

During the fall it is essential to fertilize your lawn, as it not only helps grass survive its dormant period, it also helps it to grow stronger in the spring. Apply a nitrogen-rich fertilizer to your lawn after temperatures have become mild, but before the winter cold sets in. If you are going to aerate, wait until the process is complete before applying fertilizer in order to maximize the positive effects of both.

Keep Up on Pest Control

While winter temperatures may kill mosts pests that may be lurking in your lawn, the same cannot be said for their eggs. Most insects lay their eggs in soil, which insulates the egg so that it can hatch in the spring. That is why it is important to treat any pests that are present as part of your fall lawn care routine. The same is true of weed control, as seeds survive the winter as well. If you aren’t sure what is causing damage your may see in your lawn, we are happy to help you identify and properly treat any pest problem.

Consider Dormant Lawn Seeding

Seeding your lawn after it has gone dormant is often referred to as over seeding, and is a tactic typically employed by golf courses in order to ensure a lush fairway in time for golf season. Frost and snow will not harm dormant grass seeds, and the freeze-thaw cycle of fall and winter will help the seeds settle in to the topsoil. Come spring, the seeds will germinate and help to fill in your lawn. This is a service that we perform often, and we are happy to provide you with a free estimate for your lawn.

Remember to Rake

While a leaf blower may seem like a fast and convenient way to remove leaves from your yard, it doesn’t perform one of the most basic functions of a good old fashioned rake: dethatching. Thatch builds up naturally over time in your lawn, and loosening it up is an important part of lawn health and maintenance. Using a traditional rake on occasion helps to break up thatch, and allow better water and nutrient flow to your grass’s roots. This is very easily done during fall leaf clean up. For those of you who have booked a Fall Cleanup Service with us, we will endeavor to have all clean ups completed before Thanksgiving so that your yard is neat and tidy for holiday guests.

Following these tips will help your lawn be as healthy as possible when it goes into dormancy, and to be able to come back just as strong when the snow melts. Above all, the most important aspect of proper fall lawn care is consistency, and keeping a regular maintenance schedule. Proper timing of fertilizing, watering, aeration, and seeding is imperative to the sustained health of your lawn. If you’re having trouble finding time to schedule these lawn care tasks, our professional staff is always available to provide you with personalized quotes on services that your lawn needs.

By Liberty Lawn Uncategorized 0 Comments

Magnolia Scale

Magnolia scale may not look like much at first glance. Initially, many homeowners don’t even realize they are looking at an insect!

Magnolia scale may look innocuous enough, but they can be deadly to magnolia trees. Luckily, magnolia scale can be effectively treated during your annual lawn maintenance.

Magnolia Scale Life Cycle

There are two main species of scale: armored (hard body) and non-armored (soft body).

Magnolia scale is a soft body insect, which can make the process of tree maintenance treatment slightly easier because this type of scale is more vulnerable.

However, it is important to properly identify the pest as early as possible for treatment to have maximum effect. To help, here is a brief overview of the magnolia scale life cycle.

Winter: scale goes dormant.

During the winter season, magnolia scale goes dormant. The insects typically spend the winter in nymph form encased in soft protective wax on the undersides of tree leaves and branches.

Spring: mating and incubation.

In the spring, the adults emerge and mate. The male dies off and the female begins to incubate the young as eggs she lays right underneath her own body.

Summer and fall: birth and feeding.

The adult female covers the eggs with her body until the live young emerge. The young at this stage are called “crawlers.” But the young crawlers only crawl around for as long as it takes to locate a suitable place to sink their sharp mouth parts into the tree branches and start sucking the sap right out of them.

By this time, the cold season is rolling in again, and the now-stationary crawlers enter the nymph stage for the winter right where they sit. Then in the spring the whole life cycle will start all over again.

How to Spot Magnolia Scale

The first thing to know about magnolia scale is that it doesn’t behave like a typical insect. It only moves during spring when adults mate and crawlers are born. Then it stays immobile for the remainder of its life cycle.

For this reason, many homeowners who schedule tree maintenance initially report that their magnolia trees appear to be growing “mold” or have an “ant infestation.”

Magnolia scale often does look a lot like mold or mildew once it settles in to feed on tree branches. It is bumpy and white with a waxy, semi-soft appearance that looks like nothing so much as the early stages of mold rot.

But inside and underneath this “mold,” the now-immobile feeding crawlers are busy feeding on the amino acids in the tree sap. Along with the amino acids they need, the crawlers take in plenty of sugars they don’t need. So they discard the carbohydrate-laden sugar in the form of a sticky substance called “honeydew.” This honeydew in turn attracts ants, wasps, flies, bees and molds that recognize a feast when they see it.

For this reason, sometimes the first indication of a magnolia scale infestation is the honeydew itself. This is especially the case if the infested tree overhands a deck, set of patio furniture, vehicle or walkway. Honeydew is incredibly sticky and corrosive. It will turn anything it lands on sticky. It stains and is very hard to remove.

The presence of honeydew is confirmation of a magnolia scale infestation nearby.

When to Treat Infested Trees for Magnolia Scale

While healthy magnolia trees can generally withstand small, localized attacks of magnolia scale, these pests generally do not go away on their own. Over time, undetected and untreated magnolia scale can kill a tree by draining away its nutrient supply.

Luckily, there are a number of insecticide products that are effective against magnolia scale if they are applied correctly at the right time.

Here, learning about the magnolia scale life cycle is key to successfully terminating an infestation.

The crawler stage (whether mobile or immobile) is the time in the life cycle when magnolia scale are most vulnerable. The adult females give birth in late summer – anywhere from July to September depending on where you live. So this is generally the best time to apply insecticide to treat magnolia scale.

How to Treat Infested Trees for Magnolia Scale

The optimal treatment approach will maximize damage to magnolia scale while limiting damage of surrounding foliage and beneficial insect life.

Here, it is vital to select a lawn maintenance professional to apply treatment to avoid harming nearby lawns, shrubs and unaffected trees.

The first step is to identify the scope of the infestation and the part of the life cycle the scale is currently in.

Summer and fall treatment.

For a small-scale active infestation, it may be possible to simply prune back the affected tree branches and treat just the immediate surrounding branches to ensure it does not spread.

For large-scale infestation limited to one tree or affecting multiple trees, spray insecticides containing horticultural oils and insecticidal soaps can effectively treat magnolia scale in the crawler stage.

Winter and early spring treatment.

Once magnolia scale has entered the dormant stage, treatment requires a different approach.

There is a dormant oil product that can be applied directly to the dormant scale that must be applied before the bud open up in spring, which can happen as early as March in some areas.

Systemic insecticide products can be used to treat the soil surrounding the tree itself. When applied during the winter dormant period, these insecticides will have time to be absorbed into the tree and taken into the sap so it will kill the crawlers when they emerge in the spring.

By understanding what a magnolia scale infestation looks like at different times of the year, it is possible to make a positive identification earlier in the life cycle when the scale are at their most vulnerable.

By identifying magnolia scale accurately and early, a number of effective tree maintenance treatments exist to eliminate infestation and restore tree health.