Red, white, and bur oaks are some of our most-loved trees in Minnesota, and they face a mortal threat: oak wilt. Red oaks form the backbone of the red oak-sugar maple-basswood forests of the west metro. White and red oaks intermix through the Anoka sand plain and the southeast metro. Bur oaks line the uplands […]
One of my favorite weather forecasting websites is Weather Bug. Like most forecasting, it’s not always correct but it gives a rough idea. It’s Spark component shows where lightning is active and how far away it is. One of our customer’s white pine had a very close encounter with lightning. This tree is roughly 18” […]
My aspen is really looking sick. It was fine thru July and then started turning black. Would you take a look and let me know what you suggest? It’s definitely not a watering issue. The leaf blackening is caused by a non lethal fungal leaf disease called marsonina. It is usually a problem seen in […]
Do we have orange trees in Minnesota? Yes, kind of, we do have trees in Minnesota that are orange. However, they are hawthorn trees that have turned orange due to a non-harmful disease called quince rust. Some refer to the disease as cedar apple rust but that’s a little different. Quince rust infects the hawthorn […]
Dear Vineland Tree Care: What’s eating my pine ? Sawfly larvae were feeding on your bristle cone pine, which is a very cool tree choice by the way. The larvae eat needles down to the fascicle, the sheath that hold the bundled needles together. Later in the year, the winged sawfly lays eggs (and earns […]
Anthracnose is a catch all phrase to describe leaf and shoot disease on many types of trees and shrubs. In green ash trees anthracnose appears, usually in the spring, as sudden leaf loss. A wet spring, along with the presence of the fungus, contributes to anthracnose severity. Fallen leaves are usually smaller, they may have […]
It sad to hear of an ancient tree falling over. More amazing is that after being damaged by fire and human cleverness it stood for another hundred years or more. Trees can’t run from threats so they adapt a little and adapt a little more to abuse — This ability is why trees are the longest […]
I recently read the 2013 study, titled Effects of emerald ash borer EAB on four species of birds by Koenig, Liebhold, Bonter, Hochacka, and Dickinson from Cornell Lab of Ornithology with great interest. In Michigan they found both red bellied woodpecker and white breasted nuthatch populations increased in areas of and EAB infestation from 2005 – […]
At the Northern Green conference in January of 2017 Mark Abrahamson, Assistant Director of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, presented copious evidence of the direct correlation between woodpecker damage to ash trees and an Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) infestation. Woodpecker damage is described in two ways: Flecking, […]
In January of 2017 I attended the Northern Green, an annual green industry get together, and it’s Master Classes for tree geeks. The dangers of standing ash trees falling apart due to heavy infestations of emerald ash borer (EAB), was one of the main themes of the conference. The effect of EAB, an agrilus beetle […]
Stem girdling roots grow against soil covered tree trunks, compressing the vascular system, and ultimately reducing the tree’s life span. As the trunk expands, the roots close in on the trunk, forming a tourniquet which slowly strangles the tree to death. When these trees fail, they break off at the base like a ball and […]
The process of hiring our team to work on your trees is simple:
Winter is an excellent time to prune trees. After leaves fall branch structure is more obvious and pruning can be more effective. Although in some winters with heavy snow cover it's difficult to get a good clean-up job.
Many signals of branch health are apparent in the fall and winter months. Branches lacking any bark are the most obviously dead. Branches with loose bark can be dead or perhaps dying. Branches without the small twigs on the end can be dead, or the branch may be a live stub in which case it should probably be removed. Branches without buds on the ends of the twigs are dead. The least obvious sign of a dead branch is a branch with buds that are dead, dry or under developed. Dead buds on some tree varieties in the Midwest, such as locust, are even frustrating for experienced arborists to determine. To further complicate matters branches with leaves on in the winter (such as Norway Maples) can be newly dead.
