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Bob Lee & Sons Tree Service
Our staff is dedicated to using the most efficient practices and equipment to aid in all of your tree care needs.
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Our accredited assessors will help you develop a firewise plan. Our assessors specialize in fuels reduction, structure protection and creating defensible space. Every wildland firefighting agency agrees that creating defensible space is one of the best actions you can take to protect your home from the dangers of wildfire.
Much of the Southwest is considered a high-hazard fire environment. Many areas in Arizona possess all of the ingrediants necessary to support large, intense and uncontrollable wildfires. Our ability to live more safely depends on pre-fire activities. These are actions taken before a wildfire occurs.
Pre-fire Activities Often Include:
There are only a few valid reasons to prune a tree in the urban landscape:
Promote tree’s health
Reduce hazards to people
Train a young tree
Increase or decrease flowers/fruit
Pruning/training young trees (first 3 years on the site). Proper pruning when the tree is young will result in a mature tree that is structurally stronger, lives longer, and is less costly to maintain.
A. Pruning your tree at planting time:
There is no need to prune a newly-planted tree unless branches have been damaged. It has been found that removing tips and buds of young trees slows root growth. If trees are left unpruned, expanding buds and new leaves help root expansion and tree establishment. Damaged branches can be removed at their point of origin, or they can be cut back to a lateral branch that will provide foliage and help establishment the first season
B. Young tree health and structure:
A word of caution: different tree species grow at different rates. Your tree may not seem to be adding any height or spread for the first year or so. Check the irrigation design and frequency, keep the soil mulched, and avoid compacting the root zone. Resist the urge to prune a young tree simply to “force” new growth. Such growth is weakly attached, rarely looks good, and will require additional maintenance later in the tree’s life.
Conversely, overwatering and overfeeding a young tree may result in fast growth that appears to need pruning each year. Cutting back on irrigation after the first summer, particularly if the species is adapted to your climate, can slow growth and maintain a more balanced tree that requires less maintenance.
Pruning or ruining?
There is an old saying among professional arborists in connection with tree pruning, “If in doubt, don’t prune.” Nature has a unique way of allowing trees to develop natural forms that balance shoot growth with root zone health. When this natural form is destroyed, trees will react accordingly — by producing rank, weakly-attached growth, elongation of existing shoots, reduced vigor, increased susceptibility to insect or disease problems, or consumption of stored carbohydrates.
There is always a reaction. If even one limb is removed from a tree, there should be a reason for doing so. Anyone who prunes for the sake of pruning “because everyone else is” will undoubtedly cause problems that will be difficult to correct in later years.
On the other hand, careful selective pruning for any of the valid reasons listed will produce a healthy, beautiful tree that will enhance your landscape and improve the quality of life in your neighborhood for years to come.
Pine bark beetles in Arizona are generally of the genus Ips or Dendroctonus. However, several other genera also attack pine, including: Hylastes, Hylurgops, and Pityogenes. Often several species will attack at the same time. Identification of specific beetle species can be difficult. Identification can be aided by knowing the host species attacked, time of year, and the design of the galleries (tunnels) created by the adults and larvae.
Bark beetles contribute to the death of thousands of ponderosa pines in Arizona each year. Most often when larger trees are attacked and killed they have been weakened by drought, lightning, construction activity or they have been growing on poor sites. Of special concern is the loss of high-value trees at home sites or in developed recreation areas.
Evidence of infestation
Fading foliage in the tree is often the first sign of a beetle attack. Trees attacked by Ips spp. typically fade from the top of the crown downward, while Dendroctonus spp. killed trees fade from the bottom of the crown upward. The needles change from green to a light straw color within a few weeks to one year after attack and eventually become brown or red. Dust caused by boring in the bark crevices and at the tree base is another sign. Often, numerous small pitch tubes globules of pitch ³/4 to 1 ¹/4 ” diameter) appear on the trunk of infested trees.
This article was written by Tom DeGomez, County Agent and Deborah Young, Associate Director.
TESTIMONIALS
Review from Nov 10, 2021
Bob Lee & Sons Tree Service are very professional the crew went above and beyond our most wild imagination.
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