Tree of Infamy

As if I needed a reminder of how bad the Eastern red cedar invasion has become in the Southwest, this week brought that problem front and center. The prolific tree is taking over millions of acres, crowding out native oaks and just about every other species as they spread. And that isn't all.

When wildfires occur, volatile Eastern red cedars ignite like torches, creating raging infernos. A case in point: in Oklahoma City, the invaders fueled wildfires covering 18 square miles last week, burning dozens of  houses and scores of vehicles...and the fire danger continues. Just yesterday, a wildfire came disturbingly close to us (see yesterday's post).

Ironically, fire once controlled the pest, as ranchers (and before them, Native Americans) periodically burned off vast expanses of grasslands in an annual rite of renewal. In these conflagrations, cedar seedlings didn't have a chance. But as small farms and ranches have gone by the wayside, seedlings have been spared...by the millions. After seven years or so,  young trees are mature enough to cast their own seeds to the wind, so the problem keeps growing exponentially.

It's hard to say how this invasive genie is ever going to get put back into the bottle. The numbers of Eastern red cedars have become so astronomical over the past several decades that the cost of irradicating them boggles the mind. Meanwhile, a growning number of cities are banning the buying, selling, transporting, and planting of the plant.

Recently, entire new industries have begun popping up, aiming to take advantage of what some see as a rich new source of raw materials. Eventually, Eastern red cedars could become an important energy source, turned into fuel for power plants. But Eastern red cedars are like used tires (which are already used as fuel), in that it will take a lot of power plants to use them up faster than they can reproduce.

For my part, all I can do is make sure the trees don't get a toe-hold on my property. And when it comes to store-bought mulch, I stick with cedar, doing my small part to help turn back the Great Eastern Red Cedar Invasion.

BLOG EXTRA!! Wildfire

A huge wildfire ignited about 20 minutes ago, due south of us, eating rapidly through red-cedar choked woods. Winds are blowing it this way. The leading edge is still three miles distant...but this week's wildfires have been traveling for miles, so we're watching it closely.

For a fire that's just 20 minutes old, it's already huge. Noble High School, directly across the street from the fire's starting point, has been evacuated.

We've learned to "interpret" smoke, this week. Light brown is brush; a quick puff of black is a red cedar; a substantial amount of black smoke is a house or other structure. We did see one big black cloud of smoke erupt, so that's bad news for someone.

The wildfire is still building. Fire crews are being dispatched from other communities, including possibly pulling some crews off the fires in OKC.

Going Topless

Months ago, a truck pulled up in front of my house, and a worker hopped out. As he approached my front door, I noticed the sign on the side of the truck advertised "floor bracing" and "tree service." Right away, that combination gave me pause. When I noticed "tree topping," my hackles rose.

If a so-called tree expert recommends that you top a tree, I have just one word of advice: DON'T!

Topping a tree—even an injured one—only compounds the damage. The tree can never again branch normally. And though eager "tree toppers" might claim that if you engage their services, your tree will never again suffer damage from, say, the type of ice storm that caused the original damage, the opposite is more likely to be the case.

Tree branches are firmly anchored extensions of the trunk or larger branches from which they grow, much like fingers growing out of a hand (only without the joints). Once that natural growth pattern is lopped off, normal branching can no longer take place. Instead, the tree can produce only weakly-connected sprouts (that can actually be rubbed off by hand in their early stages). This epicormic growth is easily disconnected from the tree when burdened by ice or snow. Also, the tree takes on a dense "lollipop" shape that is highly  susceptible to wind damage.

As if that weren't bad enough, topping is a severe shock to the plant—the blunt ends of limbs cannot callus over, so they remain inviting entry points for pests and disease organisms—and the mutilation can severely shorten the lifespan of a tree.

So when the worker knocked on my door and handed me a business card that—again—advertised topping, I couldn't resist. I politely informed him that I would never use a tree service that advocated topping, because that was a practice that no respectable arborist would ever recommend.

My brief lecture didn't send the tree service scrambling to change its ways. Last week, I found another of its  business cards tucked into my door jamb, still advertising tree topping. This serves as a reminder that there are always inept "experts" (and even outright charlatans) out there—I can't help calling them arboreal quacks—ready to do more harm than good.

Let the buyer (or in this case, hirer) beware.

Killer Salt Water

If you're thinking wind and flooding are the only threats to your landscape by a big coastal storm such as Hurricane (then Tropical Storm) Erin, you're wrong.

                                                                                 Fema News Photo
Coastal storms can present property owners with a third threat as they send surges of sea water onto coastal landscapes, leaving behind sea salt on foliage (from spray) and in the soil. And while sea salt goes great on popcorn and corn chips, trees and shrubs do not like it. Most, in fact, would rather die than tolerate salt.

When Hurricane Katrina collapsed levees in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2005, vast areas were inundated with salt water. The salt, as much if not more than the water itself, wiped out seventy-five percent of New Orleans's urban forest, including the grand old live oaks and sweet-scented magnolias for which the city is famous.

So what does salt do to a plant? Think of the reason you gargle salt water when you have a sore throat: it  draws out inflammation. Well, salt has a similar (though wholly negative) influence on plants: instead of drawing out inflammation, it draws out moisture. It also burns foliage.

If salt spray can be hosed off foliage soon enough, damage can be minimized. On the other hand, if the soil itself has been saturated by salt water, the only remedy is a thorough flushing (after it has had time to dry out), either with irrigation or as a result of heavy rains. This process can take weeks or months. Only then is the soil suitable for replanting.

If your landscape's anchor plants succumb to a high-salt diet, you can help save yourself from a repeat performance in the future by opting for replacement species that are relatively salt-tolerant. After all, the storm that killed your plants won't be the last.

And speaking of salt-tolerant plants: what are the favorites in your locale?

The Great Inland Hurricane

While following the progress of Hurricane Irene up the Atlantic Coast this week...

...you probably assume that hurricanes (typhoons in the Pacific) are limited exclusively to oceans and large gulfs. But even meteorologists were agog four years ago, when mild-mannered Tropical Storm Erin pushed far inland from the Gulf of Mexico...and formed a distinct hurricane eye smack over Oklahoma!

"Hurricane" Erin's winds revved up to 57 mph, with gusts up to 80—a far cry from what Irene is dishing out. Even so, wind velocities were powerful enough to savage roofs, down power lines, and wreak damage over a wide area. But it was the rains, as so often is the case with hurricanes, that proved deadly to seven people caught in flooding.

In an area unaccustomed to rain in such volume, inland residents were caught off guard.

As the storm wallowed over the state, Oklahomans watched their rain gauges fill with alarming speed, and then fill again after they were emptied. Rivers and streams surged out of their banks and into homes, while storm drains turned into white-water rapids.

Even trees reached critical tolerance levels—caught in rushing water, or marooned in waterlogged soil that loosened the anchorage of roots, many simply let go and toppled. And still the rains came, in quantities more suited to the tropics than to the normally dry Southern Plains.

Had Erin been coupled with Irene's higher winds, the damage and loss of life most likely would have been far greater. But the sheer volume of water that flooded onto the plains that day four years ago gave Oklahomans an inkling (a disturbing one, at that) of what more powerful coastal hurricanes can do.

So you folks along the Atlantic Coast: good luck.

A Good Walk Spoiled

Over the years, the more I've learned about trees and shrubs, the more I notice the neglect and abuse of those important anchor plants all around me. In many cases, the abuse starts young, with new plants being improperly staked, which can result in lifelong damage. (Most new trees don't require staking at all, except to prevent tipping in windy areas or on sloping terrain.)

But urban trees in particular are subjected to a wide range of tortures that can damage their immune systems and radically shorten their lives. This can include such evils as inept pruning—or no pruning at all—as well as  that all-to-common (and ultimate) crime against trees: topping. They can even do themselves in with root-strangling (surface roots that grow atop their neighbors, effectively chocking them off.) Speaking of roots, another major threat to trees and shrubs involvess root restrictions from pavement, buildings, and other barriers. In addition, let's not overlook root damage caused by pedestrian and vehicular traffic and heavy objects that compress soil within the feeder root zone. And let's not even get into pests and diseases.

In most cases, the abuse isn't intentional; it's simply the result of taking for granted the urban forest that is such an important part of our daily scenery. Before a devastating ice storm "cured" my blindness some years ago, I was as guilty as anyone of this lack of arboreal awareness. No more.

These days, the more I learn about trees, the more difficult it is to ignore what these magnificent plants go through as they struggle to survive, often in extremely stressful circumstances. With eyes wide open, I accept my individual responsibility to, in the words of Dr. Seuss's Lorax, "Speak for the trees."

Becoming tree-aware has enriched my life with a fascinated awareness of—and appreciation of—the lives and complexities of these beneficial giants. But let me tell you, it can also spoil a good walk.

Heat Waves: Worse Than Miserable

Yesterday, we broke our local all-time record for 100F degree temperatures in a calendar year—50 days—and the end is not yet in sight. Down in the Texas Hill Country, artist Pablo Solomon recently reported 63 days above the century mark—and no rain for nine months!

The heat wave of 2011—the hottest summer in the state's recorded history—is beyond just miserable. A nearby wildlife-rehabilitation facility is now caring for more than 100 baby Mississippi kites that had bailed out of their nests because they were roasting up in the treetops. In the opposite direction, the ground has baked so deep that, in our back yard, we discovered a pocket gopher sprawled on the grass beneath an old oak tree that had just been watered. The critter appeared to be luxuriating on the damp soil.

And, oh, those poor trees. Unlike birds and gophers, trees can't go anywhere during unremitting heat waves. As the soil heats up and dries out, a tree's delicate feeder roots dry out too. And the soil doesn't have to dry  very deeply to start causing real damage.

Most of a tree's vital feeder roots are within 6 to 20 inches beneath the surface, spread out up to three times the diameter of the tree's drip zone—the outer edge of its branches. (Deeper "perennial" roots merely anchor the plant to the ground.) All feeder roots are important, but those within the drip zone are absolutely critical.

So I soak that old oak's "critical root zone" during these miserably hot, dry days, making sure the delicate subterranean feeder system doesn't overheat and desiccate. Thus far, the heat-beleaguered tree has hung onto its sparse canopy foliage, while other trees around town have already died. So I assume the oak appreciates my efforts with the water hose. So, apparently, does the gopher.