CARING FOR AN OLD RED OAK TREE

AN OLD RED OAK GETS A PRUNING (is that Spider Man up there?)...

...MOSTLY WITH A HAND SAW...

...ALWAYS TIED IN; SAFETY FIRST...

...CHAIN SAW FOR LARGER BRANCHES; IT'S TIED IN, TOO!~

...BUT THIS MAY KILL THE TREE EVENTUALLY ANYWAY!

Sunday, 31 degrees F, wind NNE, cold and blustery.  The sky wears a high overcast and the sun is again nowhere to be seen.  The humidity, 87%, and the barometer, 30.16", are virtually unchanged from yesterday.  When the wind blows off the still-frozen lake it is like standing in front of an open freezer door.  The fishing tug the Eleanor B, featured in the posting of April 12, has left its mooring.  I can't imagine it is out fishing anywhere, but maybe it got to the ferry channel and thence to some open water somewhere.  Those guys sure were anxious to get out of Bayfield.  Maybe they are bank robbers on the run or something.
  Bayfield has many grand old trees, some almost as old as the town itself.  Most are sugar maples, Acer saccharum, or native red oaks, Quercus rubra.  These ancient trees occur on both public and private property and can be a challenge to maintain.  Both maples and oaks need naturally occurring dead branches removed on a periodic basis, or the branches will come down with wind and snow, which can be dangerous as well as messy, and a clean, proper saw cut is much preferable to a ragged break that doesn't heal properly.  Insects and disease can invade a tree through improperly healed wounds.
   The red oak pictured, on the corner of 8th St. and Rittenhouse Ave. is a majestic tree.  Without taking a core boring and counting the rings it is difficult to estimate the age of such a tree, since trees can grow at various rates dependent upon water, nutrients, exposure, soil and other environmental conditions.  Many old city trees were planted at about the time the house on the property was built and that can provide as good a guess as any, and I estimate this tree to be about a hundred years old.
   Pruning out dead branches in a large old tree is a job for an  experienced, certified climbing arborist.  Jay of Jay's Tree Care is up in this tree.  Note how he is tied in to a strong higher branch at all times, as is his chain saw.  Safety in the tree and on the ground is the top priority in tree work, and even the most experienced and careful climbers can make serious or even fatal mistakes; but there is no better way to trim a tree.  Jay fell from nearly that height several years ago and got off with a broken femur, but he sure doesn't want to repeat the experience.
   As far as other routine care of an old tree is concerned, water and nutrients are a factor, and periodic applications of a slow release, low-nitrogen complete fertilizer are helpful, as is watering during drought  conditions.  Gypsy moths love oak leaves, an the tree should be monitored for them; watch for egg masses on trunk and branches when the tree is dormant.  Oak wilt can spread by root grafts from tree to tree, so if a neighboring tree is diseased it may be necessary to isolate an important tree from the roots of neighboring oaks mechanically or chemically.  Oaks should not be pruned between April 1 and mid-summer or later.  It is best to prune them while they are dormant, to prevent the spread of disease.
   Unfortunately, all the corrective pruning and preventive care possible won't compensate for actions that compromise the bark and prop roots of a tree, and raising the soil around the base of the tree will usually, with time, rot the bark and girdle the tree, killing it.  The tree in this case has had a raised flower bed built around it.  The added soil is not very deep, but any change in grade around a tree is potentially harmful.  Doing so may not only rot the bark on the trunk but also the bark on exposed prop roots, compromising the structural support of the tree.
   Some trees, particularly those species that have adapted to growing in flood plains with changing water and soil levels can withstand  soil filled around their trunks but red oaks, sugar maples, white ash, black cherry, linden and other climax forest trees, as well as most conifers, will not.  Soil fill also interferes with water infiltration and air exchange to the roots of established trees,  weakening them.
   Both sugar maples and red oaks exhibit structural problems as they age; very old sugar maples tend to have crowded, weak multiple trunks and branches that are prone to wind and snow damage, and red oaks often develop cavities at the base of the tree which are difficult to detect and may make the tree very unstable (another good reason not to raise the grade around the base of the trunk).  I did take it upon myself to warn the homeowner of the danger of doing so but I doubt she was convinced, as the raised bed was built a number of years ago and the tree does not appear damaged.
   It can take many years for the thick bark of a mature tree to rot due to soil being raised around it, but when it finally does so the tree will die.