Does your tree drop copious amounts of leaves, flowers, and seeds that litter your yard, your neighbor’s yard, and clog your gutters? Then congratulations, you have a messy tree!
Below are some facts [good and bad] about messy trees:
1. Every tree, regardless of species, is a messy tree. Whether it’s a tree, shrub, or annual, all plants live to reproduce. This means they all produce leaves, flowers and seed pods in various shapes and sizes, and they drop them at some point during the year.
2. Harsh pruning does not cure a messy tree. People owning messy trees think that by cutting a tree in half (either by removing the top half or one side of the tree) they will lessen the debris drop. What many folks fail to understand is that trees need all those leaves to live. If it’s vigorous enough, it will reproduce the same amount of leaves (if not more) than it just lost. And if the tree is not vigorous to withstand the harsh pruning it could die.
3. Young trees are less messy than mature ones. When you plant a 15-gallon tree in your yard, it has a very limited number of leaves and occupies a very small space. As it matures it not only grows taller but will extend its branches across the roof of your house and across the property line into your neighbor’s yard. The canopy of leaves will increase in quantity and the area where those leaves drop will also expand, eventually becoming a big messy tree!
4. Leaves are important to trees. Leaves are what feed the tree through the magical process called photosynthesis. By combining sunlight, water, and chlorophyll they produce food to keep healthy and alive. So, each leaf a tree produces is important. They provide what we appreciate most about trees. They give us oxygen to breathe, clean the air of smog, furnish a screen between you and your neighbor, block that ugly utility pole at the edge of your property, deliver shade on a hot summer’s day, present that pile of autumn leaves for the kids to jump in and lastly, they enrich the soil beneath the tree with the fallen decomposing leaves.
5. “Messy” tree vs “amazing” tree. If you change your viewpoint about your “messy” tree and appreciate it for all that it gives you, then you no longer have a messy tree! Instead, you have an amazing tree! A wonderful living entity in your yard, that does amazing, beautiful and wonderful things!
Make an appointment today with a Traverso Certified Arborist to discuss how best to groom your “messy” tree with proper pruning.