Monthly Archives: December 2018

Trees Benefit Everyone and Everything More Than You Know

Trees are a vital part of every day human quality of life

  • They provide us with shade.
  • They cool our homes.
  • They provide us many products we use daily: Paper, wood, chemicals, oils, resins.
  • Trees promote feelings of well-being and peace among people.
  • The foliage of trees help to mark the changing seasons, thus helping human to mark time.
  • Trees are a place for children to play in, under and around.
  • Because trees can survive for hundreds of years, they serve as property boundary markers, memorials of important historical events. Trees thus help bring people together, to unite people and to help people stay connected to their historical roots.
  • Trees act as gathering places for social activities and events. They can act  as places of unifying people, families, communities and generations.
  • Trees provide visual barriers, create screens, promote privacy, and make separations between divergent and sometimes conflicting elements of society.
  • Trees serve as wind screens and to buffer the impact of storms.
  • Trees increase property value.
  • Trees provide wood for fuel.
  • Trees improve the livability of cities for countless reasons. Trees add visual, emotional and psychological appeal, since few things can compare with the aesthetic impact and seasonal interest that trees offer the urban setting. They provide huge visual appeal to any area and can significantly enhance the design of a streetscape. Trees adds aesthetic beauty to one’s living space and improves the quality of life.

Trees are an essential economic asset for people and they create economic opportunities Continue reading

Did someone shoot your ornamental flowering fruit trees with a shotgun?

Identifying and Treating Flowering Plum, Cherry and Apple Trees Leaf Blights

In the spring and early summer in the Portland and Wilsonville region, do the leaves on your fruiting or ornamental plum, cherry (Prunus spp.) or flowering crab apple (Malus spp.) trees look as if someone was using them for target practice with a shotgun? Are the leaves all peppered with a gazillion small holes? 

Not to worry, your miscreant neighbor doesn’t have a vendetta against either you or your trees. However, an airborne fungal pathogen called coryneum blight or “shothole fungus” is most likely the culprit for the cherry and plum trees. For crabapple trees, a different fungus called apple scab with similar symptoms as coryneum blight is likely the guilty party. 

On the flowering cherry and plum trees, “shothole fungus” (Thyrostroma carpophilum formerly called Wilsonomyces carpophilus) overwinters in dormant infected leaf buds, blossom buds and Continue reading

Amazing Trees—The Unique and the Odd (the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska and more)

Celebrating the beauty and uniqueness of trees. Please enjoy! (All photos by Nathan or Sandi Lawrence)

A 4,500 Year-Old tree Tree Stump. This ancient Sitka spruce relic is located at Beverly Beach State Park on the Oregon coast.

Spirit Lake at Mount Saint Helens. Almost 40 years after the 1980 Mount Saint Helens volcanic eruption, Spirit Lake is still covered with floating old growth conifer logs.

“Healed” Tree Stump. In a forest of Douglas fir trees, when a tree is cut down and stump is left, you’ll sometimes find the tree stump healed over. Why is this? This is because all the tree roots are connected—a literal family of trees—and when one is wounded the remaining living trees heal the wound of the cut tree to prevent diseases from entering into the tree family.

New growth is already beginning to form on this “dead” fir stump. Eventually, the top of the stump will be healed over.

A Wysteria “Tree.” This wysteria vine in complete bloom covers this entire 60 foot tall spruce tree near Forest Grove, Oregon.

Ghost Forest, in Neskowin, Oregon. These spruce trees are thousands of years old and landed on the beach when an earthquake occurred and the tree-covered cliffs above slid into the Continue reading

December in the Garden—A To Do List

YOU can help to make the world a better, a more friendly, loving and beautiful place by tending your spot on this earth that has been given to you—your garden. Here is a to do list to help you to do just that…

Tree and Shrub Care

Fruit tree sanitation. To prevent possible spread of leaf diseases, rake up and remove leaves from around the base of fruit trees. 

Fruit trees. You can start pruning your fruit trees and continue all the way up until February.

Storm-proof your larger trees. Checking your trees for hazards and then take the appropriate measures to protect your trees from storm damage. If you’re not sure about the condition of your trees or even what to look for, call Good News Tree Service, Inc. for a free on-site
consultation.

Plant or transplant trees and shrubs. After the cold, seasonal rains have started is a good Continue reading