Selecting and caring for your trees

Considering maintenance is essential for your trees to live a healthy life, grow strong and be safe for their environment. Trees don’t need you to be there every single day for them but every now and then they require proper care for them to flourish and to prevent diseases, pests, and future problems. So, how to take care of them?

Selecting your trees

There are over 1000 species of threes in North America, do you know which one is the right for you?

One of the common mistakes is made before planting the tree, you want a tree in your property, you go to some store and look for a beautiful tree, you buy it and then you plant the tree in your backyard or close to your house, etc. Months or years later the problems come to you: a tree dying after planting, a huge tree that was planted too close to your house and now is a risk for the house, a tree getting close to the electric lines and being a risk, a tree drying up a water source, and many other problems related to trees. Therefore, we should think better before buying a tree.

Before buying a tree, think about what do you want? Fruits, flowers, a small tree, or a big tree? Once you decide what you want from your tree, consult what are the appropriate trees in your zone; did you know that every plant has an optimal zone to grow and develop their maximum potential? If you don’t know about this, consult “plant hardiness zone map”, the USDA has this information for free and you can get this information easily online.

This information will help you to pick the right tree and once you have some options think of maintenance, how tall it’s going to be? What the tree needs? How much water it needs? Light, fertilizer, pruning, etc.

Tree identification

Knowing the right tree for you take some time, and probably you’re excited to go and get a tree right now, but this time is going to be worthy in the future, a tree is not a plant for couple months, it’s going to be there for years, even for the next generation in your family, and this is why we should pick the right one.

Read about your future tree: bark characteristics, leaf shapes, colors, shade, patterns, size, texture, flower and fruits characteristics, timing of the seasons for bud break, pruning, reproduction… these are helpful features that can help your tree identification in order to choose the perfect tree for your property.

Now you know what tree you want, what trees are better for your zone, now it’s time to go to buy your tree, consult online what stores have the tree you want, go to local farms, nurseries or you can order it online, too.

Planting and taking care of trees

Even the perfect tree for you can suffer after planting, to avoid this we need to know how to plant the seedling and how to water and protect the seedling the first months, but also, we need to know the quality of our soil: nutrients, pH, texture, etc., this is fundamental for the development of your plants, a healthy soil means healthy plants.

Make a soil test and you can contrast the soil test results with the tree requirements, in this way you can know what you need to fix in the soil, what nutrients you need and what you don’t need to add, if you need to do something about texture, organic matter in the soil, etc.

Light and water: check if your tree is shade tolerant, how many hours of light per day it needs, how much water/ drought can tolerate, or if it needs special care on winter. Probably you think “this is a lot to do!”, but the good news is that this will only be at the beginning, once your tree is growing healthy it only needs basic care and, in the process, you will be learning much more about trees, and you will be able to help others to do this process in the future.

How to plant a tree

1. Dig an ample sized hole for your seedling.
2. Gently, spread out the roots of the seedling before placing it in the hole.
3. Place the seedling into the center of the hole at the correct planting depth.
4. Fill in dirt around the seedling taking care not to compact the soil too much.

Care and maintenance

Every variety has special requirements, avoid doing the same than your neighbors or taking just a general information about maintenance in trees, you can damage your trees if you don’t know the requirements for your tree.

Take in mind: mulching, is it necessary for your tree or it’s just for decoration/landscaping?

Pruning: how much it needs, when and why is necessary? Consider if you can do it yourself or if you need someone else to take care of this. If you’re doing it by yourself, please use personal protective equipment (PPE) and follow the steps for pruning your tree, avoid damage in your trees, do it in the right time of the year to avoid dehydration, pests, pathogens and diseases in your tree.

Pest control

Protect your trees from day one, put fence around seedlings to prevent them from wild animals, if there’s a storm coming in your way, place poles and tie your trees to prevent damage caused by the wind, apply organic or biological fungicides as a prevention method, if you have problems with pests, ask for help if you don’t know what is affecting your tree, for this you can go to your local cooperative extension office. If using chemical pesticides always make sure to read the labels, follow the instructions and use the correct personal protective equipment.

Keeping your trees healthy

Trees don’t need you to be there 100% of the time, once they are growing healthy and getting stronger and bigger, they take care by themselves, it’s not like our vegetables in the garden, trees can be growing healthy without your help for long periods of times. But if you want to make sure they grow healthy you always can start preventive tasks, like pruning, mulching, applying biological fungicides or insecticides in the soil and around the tree, fertilizing and installing a water irrigation system if necessary.

A tree is a company that can be for long time in your life, and with the right care it can be there for future generations. They bring more than shade, fruits, wood and texture to your landscape, trees are the lungs of the planet and, also, a reminder of our connection with our environment and this place called Earth, let’s plant a tree!

Last updated August 26, 2022