WHEN TO REMOVE SUPPORT STAKES FROM RECENTLY PLANTED TREES

PROPERLY INSTALLED SUPPORT STAKES ARE OPPOSITE, PLUMB,  SOLID, AT THE SAME HEIGHT AND EQUA-DISTANT OUTSIDE THE ROOT BALL 

GUY WIRES ARE TIGHT,  PADDED, AND DO NOT CIRCLE TREE TRUNK

ONLY WHEN ROOT BALL ITSELF IS SECURE AND CANNOT BE MOVED IN THE PLANTING HOLE ...

(SAVE YOUR BACK WITH A $50 POST PULLER)

...SHOULD STAKES BE REMOVED

Saturday, 8:00 AM.  46 degrees F, wind SW, calm with light gusts.  The sky is clear with some haze in the east.  The humidity is 89% and the barometer is falling, currently at 29.96".  A falling barometer and rising humidity presage thunder  showers for tomorrow afternoon or evening, but today should be very pleasant.
   Young trees should be staked when planted, especially in public places where they may be tugged at.  Young feeder roots are easily broken if the tree ball is moved around in the planting hole once the tree is planted and beginning to grow. Two stakes must be used; a single stake does little good and is usually placed too close to the young tree trunk.  Either steel  fence posts or wooden posts may be used, but generally speaking, steel posts are easier to handle and easier to drive with a simple post driver, rather than a sledge hammer.
   It is often questioned when stakes should be removed, and we have all seen stakes that were never removed, became unwarranted additions to the landscape and so imbedded in the earth that they were virtually impossible to pull out.
   Properly installed support posts should be opposite each other, driven in solidly to the same depth outside the root ball of the young tree, the guy wires taught and the tree straight.  Soft, flat material should be used to attach the wires to the tree.  Rough material that might chaff the bark, such as twine or rope. must not be used, and the material should not circle he tree trunk but only hold it in place from one side.  Rusty stakes should be painted, and bent ones discarded.  Wood chip mulch should be fresh, debris free and no more than  4" in depth, with the area immediately around the tree trunk left un-mulched. The appearance of the posts and guys should be neat and professional, encouraging people to respect the installation of the tree.
   Tree stakes and wires should be removed when the tree ball itself is solid in the planting hole. This may take more than one growing season, sometimes two or three, depending on the growth conditions of the young tree.  It is, however, beneficial to the tree to remove the stakes when warranted, as the tree will grow better when it is able to be moved gently by the elements.
  Steel posts may be pulled by hand, but if there are more than a few, the job will be much easier done using a simple levered stake puller, available at equipment stores for about $50.00.   There is no point in throwing out one's back at that price.
  To determine when to remove the support stakes and guys, grasp the tree trunk and move it gently back and forth; if the tree trunk moves several inches from side to side but the earth around the tree ball does not move, the stakes should be removed: but not before.  If this means that a row of street trees has some trees staked and some un-staked, so be it.  The Bayfield Tree Board removed stakes from about fifty trees at its monthly meeting yesterday.  It took four tree board members about an hour to accomplish the task.

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