Winter is a difficult time for trees, but there are things that residents can do to ensure their trees not only survive the winter, but thrive in the spring, according to Town of Leesburg Arborist Jay Banks.
Banks offers the following five tips for helping trees through the chills of winter:
- Add a thin layer of composted organic mulch to blanket the soil surface. Mulch protects and conserves tree resources and recycles valuable materials.
- Remove or correct clearly visible structural faults and deadwood. Try to make small pruning cuts that minimize the exposure of the central heartwood core on branches.
- Perform limited greenwood pruning of declining and poorly placed branches. Pruning should conserve as many living branches as possible with only a few selective cuts.
- Fertilize in small quantities. Essential elements added over a mulch layer will help provide a healthy soil environment for root growth.
- Water the tree when the soil is cool but not frozen and when there has been little precipitation. Winter droughts need treatment with water the same as summer droughts. However, it is easy to overwater in winter, so be careful.
