To Fertilize or Not to Fertilize, That Is the Question!

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To Fertilize or Not to Fertilize, That Is the Question!

Mother Nature’s Moment - March/April 2022
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

This week, like many times in the spring of the year, I was asked to visit a client property to examine some large Arborvitae to see why they were not doing well. The client thought that she needed a price for fertilizing these “stressed trees”.

It has been a rainy week after many months of drought in the Chicago area. As I stepped into the back yard I noticed I was stepping onto completely sodden soil. My shoes were making sucking noises while walking the length of the lawn to the back property line where the big Arborvitae were planted. It was easy to see from a distance that the area around the trees was about an inch or two under water. I managed to get under the trees and check out the soil with my soil probe. No surprise that the heavily clay like soil was totally saturated to about a foot below the surface.

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My Leaves Have These Weird Bumps and Lumps on Them!

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My Leaves Have These Weird Bumps and Lumps on Them!

Mother Nature’s Moment - July 2021
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

It has been a “good” year for funky leaf galls, or a bad year, I guess, depending on how you look at it. Galls are “abnormal vegetable growths caused by various agents, such as, insects, nematodes, fungi, bacteria, viruses, chemicals and or mechanical injury”. When our clients ask about these funny bumps on their tree leaves, I usually stop at the short explanation that they are completely harmless to the tree and normally caused by beneficial insects that lay their eggs in the leaf tissue which causes the strange growth they are seeing.

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What Does It Mean That Trees Are Tribal?

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What Does It Mean That Trees Are Tribal?

Mother Nature’s Moment - May 2021
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

These last two years we have all learned about our deep needs as humans to be together. We were not meant to live in isolation, to spend long hours, days, months with very little meaningful interaction with others. Going about our days behind masks, unable to even read the cues that all of us take for granted in our unspoken communications with one another. We have been diminished by all of this and knowingly or unknowingly are in grief around all we have lost.

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Getting to Know Your Trees - White Oak

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Getting to Know Your Trees - White Oak

Mother Nature’s Moment - February | March 2021
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

Almost every month we come to you with new information about trees. This month, and on and off in the months to come, I am going to try to introduce you to some of our good friends in the tree family.

The best way to learn the names of trees is to “get to know them”. The same way you get to know a new friend. First you learn their names, then you can remember their name when you see them and recognize their face and hair and the color of their eyes. Then, as you get to know them really well, you can tell what they look like from a long distance away, because of the way they walk or talk or have unique expressions or characteristics. It all becomes very familiar to you. You even learn to recognize them no matter what they are wearing or if they have had a hair cut. You KNOW them!

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Tree Diversity and Human Health

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Tree Diversity and Human Health

Mother Nature’s Moment - January 2021
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

A decade ago when we were first visiting our daughter’s-in-law family home in the mountains of Austria we had the privilege of witnessing life on a European farm first hand. While there we watched her young cousins on the mountain alm1 playing, half naked in the pond where the pigs were bathing too. It was one of the first of many real life lessons, since, on the value of biodiversity, and the role of microbes in developing our human immune systems.

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What Is a Sustainable Landscape Anyway?

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What Is a Sustainable Landscape Anyway?

Mother Nature’s Moment - December 2020
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

Thirty years ago when our sons were in grade school they had a classmate that had to flee, with his mom, out west to a place above tree line in order to not suffer horrendous neurological symptoms due to the abundant use of toxic herbicides and pesticides in our suburban landscapes. This was not a very sustainable situation.

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How Do You Tell It Is Alive or Dead Without Leaves?

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How Do You Tell It Is Alive or Dead Without Leaves?

Mother Nature’s Moment - November 2020
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

This time of year the question of “How can we tell what is alive or dead?” is a frequent one. It is so second nature to us that we often forget to explain to you how we tell if a branch is alive or dead in the middle of the “dormant” season. Let’s start by talking about what we mean when we say: “dormant season”. In the ‘olden days’, our understanding of what deciduous trees were doing in the winter was intuitive but inaccurate. Trees that lose their leaves in the autumn, do slow down their processes in order to survive the long journey around the sun. However, to say that trees go dormant during the winter is a bit misleading.

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Over Trimming Trees

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Over Trimming Trees

Mother Nature’s Moment - September 2020
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

Dr Alex Shigo, the father of modern arboriculture, once said: “Trimming your trees is one of the best things you can do for them, if you do it properly, and one of the worst things you can do, if you do it improperly.”

For a multitude of reasons we are seeing a huge number of trees that have been over trimmed or trimmed improperly. So what does that mean or what does it look like?

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“There is Fungus Amongus”!

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“There is Fungus Amongus”!

Summer 2020 Mother Nature’s Moment
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

It seems very counter intuitive that browning and dead leaves could be caused by too much water, but I wish I knew how many times in the last several weeks I have had to say to clients…”This is a problem that has been caused, or made worse, by cool, very wet spring weather.”

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Invasive Buckthorn Revisited

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Invasive Buckthorn Revisited

by: ISA Certified Arborist, Lesley Bruce Smith
Mother Nature’s Moment - April/May 2020

This last winter when attending the iLandscape conference we listened to a seminar entitled Healthy Hedges. It essentially was teaching how to eradicate weedy species from established hedges in the landscape. This is not a new subject to us so I was surprised at the insights I gained. I have never been accused of being a fan of European Buckthorn, ever. I have always said the only good Buckthorn is a dead Buckthorn.

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Viruses, Sprouts, Immune Systems and Us

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Viruses, Sprouts, Immune Systems and Us

by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist, Cancer Survivor
Wisdom from the Trees - February/March 2020 - Mother Nature’s Moment

These are indeed strange times. We feel it is vitally important to keep on the “sunny side” if you will, as we face down uncertainty. With that top of mind we are reminded that our lives, our health and our safety depends in large measure on our continued care for ourselves and the planet we live on.

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Beings of Light and Other Interesting Winter Realities

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Beings of Light and Other Interesting Winter Realities

by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist
Mother Nature’s Moment - January 2020

In these colder, dark shorter days of winter I am reminded that we are indeed “beings of light”. This is a phrase that is tossed about somewhat lightly in our culture. As a horticulturist whose job it is to save trees, let me shed a little light on light (no pardon for all the redundancy).

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Why Didn’t the Leaves Fall Off My Trees?

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Why Didn’t the Leaves Fall Off My Trees?

Mother Nature’s Moment - November 2019
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

The vast majority of our tree friends in the northern hemisphere do a great job of preparing for their winter journey. They don’t leave home, so their journey through time demands careful preparation for the freezing cold and weighty snows they will encounter during the winter. This year, those freezing temperatures arrived faster than normal. However, the native Illinois trees, early snows or not, go through the same cell hardening as during a balmy autumn. Thanks to a plant pigment called phytochrome, the cells that need to “harden” take their cues from the always faithful shortening of days, not our uncertain temperatures.

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How to Choose an Arborist?

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How to Choose an Arborist?

by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist
Mother Natures Moment, September 2019

When choosing someone to trim your mature woody plants, a.k.a. trees and shrubs, it is important to have a few questions top of mind.

Should you pick the big franchise company, your landscaper or the guy or gal you saw down the street with the truck and chainsaw?

The very first thing you should insist on is hiring an ISA (International Society of Arboriculture) Certified Arborist.

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The Amazing Process of Evapotranspiration

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The Amazing Process of Evapotranspiration

Mother Nature’s Moment • July/August 2019
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

It is difficult for us to remember that less than four weeks ago the temperatures were consistently in the 60’s and rainy, and we were wearing coats and rain gear almost everyday. We are all happy for the more summer like weather, however, the trees view it a bit differently.

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After Winter Woes

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After Winter Woes

Mother Nature’s Moment - June 2019
by: Lesley Bruce Smith

This year Boxwoods, Japanese Maples and honeybees all have something in common. They were all very badly affected by the vicious “polar vortex” freezing temperatures we experienced over the winter. Gilbert and I and our crews have seen more winter kill this spring than we have ever seen before, and for Gil that means in the last 50 years of trimming and caring for trees. It is a sad thing for us and for many of our clients who have lost favorite Redbuds or Japanese Maples or long time hedges of Boxwood. If it is any consolation just know that about 30-40% of the Japanese Maples in our practice were lost through this last winter.

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How Do Trees Grow?

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How Do Trees Grow?

Mother Nature’s Moment, April 2019
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

This last quarter we have taught several workshops that focus on tree trimming. Whenever we have a chance to get in front of people to talk about trees, we don’t miss the opportunity to talk about tree physiology. Now before you click to the next thing with a big yawn, give me a moment to share with you just how exciting this subject can be. Understanding tree physiology helps those of us that live and work with trees to know how to help them live the longest and healthiest lives possible. As an arborist of almost 40 years I can tell you that some of the most damaging practices done to and around trees are done because of the many misconceptions we have about them. Understanding a bit about how trees live and grow helps us to be good tree friends.

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Blue Spruce Blues

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Blue Spruce Blues

Mother Nature’s Moment August 2018
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

This year has been a tough one for the Blue Spruce (Picea pungens ‘Glauca’). More accurately, this year appears to have been a tough one for Blue Spruce because we have been called into a lot of situations to evaluate Blue Spruces that are in terrible shape. The problems that they are exhibiting now began at a minimum of 15-18 months ago.

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Riverbirch with Falling Leaves

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Riverbirch with Falling Leaves

Mother Nature’s Moment August 2018
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

Over the last week or so we have received a number of calls and have noticed with our own Riverbirch that there are a lot of yellow leaves on the ground. This spring we had an unprecedented spring of cool temperatures and lots of rain, and then more rain. All that weather triggered the trees to produce an equally unprecedented number of leaves, or in tree language “food producing evapo-transpirators” which translated means that leaves not only produce food for the tree from the sun’s energy but they transpire water through the tiny holes they have called stomata.

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