The Fairmount Trees

Parents, Now is the Time to Take Care of Your Young Ones, Not your biological children. You provide a good enough effort with them. But, now it is the time to take care of those small young trees you planted in your front yard during the last couple years. They sure can use your help.

First, realize that Texas summers are brutal on young trees. Their root system are not fully developed, so they will need to be carefully watered during our hot, dry summers. Watering only with your yard sprinklers can only wet the top two or three inches of the topsoil. That’s good enough for the lawn turf, but not adequate moisture for our young trees. Their roots are much deeper in the soil and can’t compete with the well established turf grass. Remember the hole you dug to plant the new tree? That’s how deep the water has to get in order to nurture your young tree. For the first couple of years plan on watering the trees in addition to running the lawn sprinkler. Provide 5 to 10 gallons of water individually to each tree, pouring the water slowly to let it all sink into the soil around each tree.
 
Second, mulch an area around each young tree. A circle 2 or 3 feet wide will keep those thirsty grasses and weeds from invading the tree’s space and prevent competing for moisture. Form the mulch like a depression around each tree so your added water runs in toward the main stem of the tree and not away from the mulched circle. The mulch will also conserve the water and reduce weed growth and grasses from evading the tree’s space.

Thirdly, resist trimming those lower branches growing from the new tree. You may think it “looks better” or the tree will “grow straighter”. Yet trimming branches too early can only slow the young tree’s growth (and the roots, too). This can also set up the “lollipop effect” that makes the young tree top heavy and allows the wind to whip the young tree in the wind. Best to wait on pruning for a few years until those lower branches grow to about quarter size in diameter or larger.

The same with using your weed eater too close to the tender tree stems. On contact that equipment can cause slices across the young tree stem which can seriously injure the water flow veins of the tree, cutting off the natural flow of water up the tree’s stem. Best to protect the young tree stems with some heavy wrapping or placing a plastic tube at least 6 inches high around the stem to ward off all those over-anxious swipes with the machinery.