Top Summer Maintenance Tips for Healthy Trees

Summer is the time for vacations and relaxation, but before you pack your bags for your next adventure, you’ll want to make sure that your outdoor landscaping can keep up with the summer heat. At Ben & Annie’s Trees for Tomorrow, our goal is to encourage all those throughout our community and the world to plant more trees throughout their own neighborhoods in the hope of bringing about a better future for ourselves and our planet. One way to ensure that that continues to happen is to take care of the trees we already have and make sure they are able to continue growing, no matter what. 

In the summer months, your tree maintenance will be focused on getting your trees ready for the fall season—so read on to see some of the top tips our team has put together to make sure your trees continue to thrive. 

Take care of your soil 

Soil conservation is one of the most important factors you’ll want to set your sights on first as there are many common problems that arise in trees due to poor soil composition. Common issues such as a lack of nutrients or acidity in the soil can easily arise if you’re not careful. It’s also important that your soil isn’t too compact, so air and water flow to the roots isn’t obstructed at all. 

Focus on pruning

The summertime is ideal for getting rid of any dead or infected portions of the tree to encourage the tree to continue growing. You want to ensure that you are not damaging any healthy branches when you undertake this maintenance item. When you properly prune any dead or infected branches from your trees, you’re allowing the tree to continue its growth in a healthy manner.

Effective irrigation 

It comes as no surprise that watering trees is incredibly important—especially when the weather is as hot as we see it in Texas. When you water trees, you want to focus your efforts mainly on the root area, and water with a hose instead of with a sprinkler to ensure that the water is getting deep enough into the soil. Watering in the morning is also preferred to ensure that the water doesn’t evaporate as quickly from the heat—and watering twice weekly is a good rule of thumb, especially when the temperatures hit their highest point.

Maintain mulching

There are many benefits of mulching including keeping up the soil’s moisture levels and ensuring that the soil temperature stays roughly the same—and by evenly spreading out the mulch around the root zone of the tree, you can easily help your trees continue to grow all summer. You want to add roughly 2 to 3 inches of mulch to the root zone and should always try to keep the mulch fresh by either raking the top layer or simply adding new mulch when needed. 

Check for pests

While you’re pruning your trees, watering them or checking on the soil composition—it’s always a good idea to give them a once-over as well to see if any pest damage can easily be seen. During the summertime, though, it’s always a great idea to get an arborist out to your home to fully ensure that your trees are healthy and that no pests are damaging them at all. 

Shading 

When it comes to newly planted trees in particular, ensuring that they have plenty of shade throughout the summer months is crucial to giving them a viable chance to surviving the warm Texas temperatures. 

At Ben & Annie’s Trees for Tomorrow, our team strives to provide relevant information to those in our community in order to help create better neighborhoods for our future generations. If you’d like to learn more about the work we do, or if you’d like to learn about becoming a partner, give us a call at (210) 670-5297 or fill out our online form today.