Planning Plant Health

Community association landscape care contracts generally place great importance on lawn care and little, if any, on other items in the landscape. Lawn and shrub/tree care contracts account for 25 to 40 percent of most association budgets. Developing a landscape care plan that provides healthy bushes and trees (known as woody plants) is obviously a good investment.

Plant health care includes proper watering, insect control, and good pruning. Plant problems generally start from the misconception that if a plant is green, it is fine, or sometimes the thought is not to care about a plant expecting that it will be replaced under warranty anyway. Nurseries try to sell healthy plants. They keep the plants well fed and watered before delivery, but if we do not continue the same care, they will not last. If a plant is not cared for if it is installed in a location where it has a low chance to succeed, you may be faced with an unbalanced landscape environment riddled with disfigured unhealthy plants, and/or, continual costly plant replacement.

If you desire a well-balanced long-term vibrant landscape in your community association, please consider the needs of the plants. Plant health care stems from a well-developed plan, appropriate professional care and a touch of common sense . To better understand the plants, you may wish to go to a nursery and read the labels on the plants, research specific plants on the Internet, purchase a basic plant care guide book or talk to a licensed arborist. If you nurture the community plants as you do the plants in your own yard, you will develop and maintain a healthy, balanced landscape environment.

Developing the Plan - To start with, assess the community plants for health and vigor. Are proper pruning techniques being exhibited, as well as fertilization, water requirements and soil fertility? If you or your community's Board of Trustees or Landscape Committee members do not know much about plants, that's ok, but that would be the time for help from the arborist or qualified nursery professional. Money spent on the pro, if needed, will pay dividends for the life of the plant stock.

The local county extension service and many university extension services provide soil sample kits at a nominal fee. Having the soil analyzed is important so that you know which nutrients are present and which are lacking. Armed with a list of the plant stock, information regarding the plants from the above mentioned resources, and what soil strengths or weaknesses are relative to available nutrient, pH, etc., you can develop a plan to bring the existing plants into good health

Specific areas of the Plant Health Plan are, once again: proper watering, fertilization, pruning and insect control. Each of these items is important and has a direct effect on the plant.

Watering — Some might have the thought that it rained a lot this spring or even yesterday so why do I have to water the plant? Proper watering of plant stock is vital to plant health. Too little water and the plant starves, withers and dies. Too much water and the plant drowns. Lawns grow well when watered 1 to 2 inches per week depending upon rainfall, direct sun, heat and wind conditions, while woody plants grow best when they are hydrated once every week or two. Watering trees and shrubs via the slow trickle method at the plant drip line for a couple of hours is best for the plant. Quantity of water provided to the plant will depend on soil type. Heavy clay retains moisture, but it takes longer to get the moisture down deep. The roots are what need the moisture, so loosening the soil is important. Water feed piping is sometimes used with new plant stock installation, but more often used with trees. With this trickle system, the plant takes what it needs and the soil and roots have a chance to dry out the rest of the week. Whether or not you have fertilized the plants in the fall, if the fall season has been dry nearly all plants, especially plants recently installed, require additional water in the winter, as well.

Watering young trees and shrubs in the winter is a little more difficult, due to draining the hose or carrying the bucket of water through the snow, but it pays to make the effort, as the plants will be healthier and less winter kill or die back will be experienced. Winter watering is not needed as often and less water is used. For example, once a month a plant may need ¼ of an hour soak versus summer soaking of 1-2 hours every week or two. Some plants, such as spruce, pine and yew will drown if the soil does not dry out so be careful how much you water these plants or move the plant to a location where it will not continually have wet roots.

Fertilization - One primary step to consider is fall fertilization of all woody plants. While there is no magical answer to plant health and longevity, an important step, especially for young plants 1-5 years at the site, is to feed the plants in the fall, because during the fall the rest of the plant basically shuts down and the roots grow and gather strength and nutrition for use during the next season. The exact mix of fertilizer will vary due to soil conditions and the specific plants to be fertilized. Remember the value from the soil sample(s). When you know what the soil is lacking, you can tailor the fertilization program to that community and its plants.

Fall feeding with water-soluble fertilizer through a probe (hydraulic fertilizing) is one of the best methods, as the plant receives fertilizer and water at the same time and can put the food to work rapidly. The fertilizer for foundation plantings such as taxus, burning bushes, junipers and crabapples should be a well-balanced formula containing natural organic based nitrogen. Certain trees and shrubs such asAustrian, Scotch and Mugo pines, should not be fertilized with high nitrogen fertilizers but rather a balanced formulation necessary for optimum health and growth. The spruce, white pines, ash, oak and maple trees throughout your communities will also benefit from the same fertilization as the foundation plants.

You may wish to provide the white pines and oaks with iron and manganese, but that will be determined by what the soil samples reveal. Feeding plants during spring is the second best time to help them as they prepare for the expected stress caused by the heat and lack of moisture in summer.

Insects & Disease - Insects have been around a long time, so it is doubtful that we can eliminate them from the landscape. We can, however, attempt to control the effect of insects on the landscape plants. Insecticide treatments are needed to maintain a thriving landscape environment. Ask the professional about the insecticide treatments needed. The professional arborist knows where specific insects live (primary and secondary host plants) and when certain insects are likely to hatch and cause specific plant damage.

Healthier plants from good water and fertilization practices can usually survive the insect attack if treated timely, where weak plants often perish or become disfigured. There are many insects that affect many types of plants, so it is best that you tailor the treatment for the community plants with a professional arborist. For example: mites that harm spruce and burning bush are different and require different chemical applications. Various tree pests can be controlled with early spring sprays of dormant oil, yet additional insecticides may be needed during or directly after the insects hatch. If the plants have mites and you do not treat the plants, you may expect the plant to defoliate and if this is allowed to exist for more than one or two years the plant will probably be disfigured, if it lives.

Another example of insect damage is the European sawfly larvae to Mugo pine shrubs and Scotch pine trees. The larvae look like the needle of the plant to the causal passer-by and they eat the plant to death, to the point that the shrub or tree loses all its old needles and becomes woody in appearance. Insecticide and sometimes diluted dish soap sprayed on the larvae and plant will rid the plant of the hungry little insect. Arborvitaes, red cedar, pine and spruce trees or juniper shrubs are favorite host plants for bagworms and, if infected with bagworms, they will defoliate the plants in late summer and early fall. Bagworms will winter over on the host plants and hatch 300-500 little eating larva that spread to other plants and defoliate them as well. The bagworm is not an insect like the common bee that you want on the plants. If you see little hanging brownish gray dried up pinecone shaped egg sacks on trees or shrubs in the landscape environment, have them checked soon by an arborist. Insecticide treatments can be very useful for control of this pest and the chemical control needs to occur probably twice between mid-May and mid-June. You can also remove every one of the egg sacks that you can find prior to mid-May, but treatment will still be needed.

Arborists can also advise you about diseases such as apple scab which affects specific plants in your landscape like crab trees and if there are cost productive methods to treat the harmful disease on those particular plants. Notice that last phrase-cost productive. Sometimes you cannot win a battle with insects or a disease and it may be better to cut your losses and start over with an alternative plant. If you are not sure, you're better off seeking professional advice on whether the plant can be saved versus cost to replace these badly infected plants. If you cannot control or limit an insect or disease from spreading and it breaks out throughout the landscape stock, the end result could be many times worse than the removal of the 5, 10 or 15 plants that are badly infected.

Trimming or pruning — Plants usually require trimming and/or pruning to maintain size for the foundation beds or yard areas where they exist. Hand pruning is the best method for plant health, but it is costly.

Many contractors shear plants with power equipment due to time and cost. Specific plants such as Mugo pines should only be hand pruned to maintain size while Taxus (Yew) may be sheared with power equipment. Working with the Board or Landscape Committee to determine how they want the community to look is one important step. When deciding how to trim or prune, another vital aspect is to understand how the specific plants will react to pruning. Some plants, Bayberry for example, do not perform well over time if sheared into a hedge, while Taxus (Hicksi Yew) do tolerate hedging. Try to find out how the plant(s) will react and develop your trim/pruning plan accordingly. If you are cutting out a cankered limb from a tree or shrub, whether you know the cause of the canker or not, be sure to clean the saw or cutting tool between cuts by dipping the tool into a 10% solution of chlorine bleach and water and drying the tool completely after dipping between cuts, to reduce the chance of infecting other plants. You do not want to spread a disease to healthy plant tissue.

The basic guidelines above should reduce the number of plants needing replacement. If replacement is necessary, select plants that will thrive in the existing light soil conditions. Select plant cultivars that are less susceptible to disease, insect and salt damage. Follow nursery advice. Feed and water the plant. Do not allow the plant to be damaged during the pruning operations and enjoy the landscape you have created for the community.

Focus on the goal - By routinely feeding the plants, providing proper deep watering and effective pruning, you will minimize the always-present insect damage and replacement potential. The alternative to plant health care is plant replacement which is costly due to plant and labor costs. It also causes less than desirable aesthetics and an unbalanced landscape appearance.