Have a Heart – Don’t Wound a Tree

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Bonnie Lee Appleton

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Photo Credit: Bonnie Lee Appleton

Do you “heart” your tree? Trees deeply wounded have difficulty recovering.

Stupid creatures – trees just stand there and take barrage after barrage of abuse from Mother Nature, other living creatures and people. Winds blow their branches off, rodents snack on their bark for winter munchies, and sap suckers drill holes in their trunks as they forage for insects.

As is that weren’t bad enough, there are the “tender loving care” things that people do to trees: We drill holes in them to inject micronutrients or pesticides; we hack off dead, broken and diseased branches; we cable large branches together to prevent splitting; and we install lightning protection on them.

More often, people do lame things like whack poor trees with lawn movers, use them as sign posts or lop off their tops if they think they’re too big (or just in the way). We also run into them with cars, dig up their roots and peel their bark off as if it were shedding sunburned skin.

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Photo Credit: Bonnie Lee Appleton

Sap suckers drill holes in tree trunks as they forage for insects.

Regardless of who attacks our trees – or how or why – these constant activities all have one thing in common: They create wounds. Whether large or small, round or square, smooth or ragged, wounds cause trees to expend energy in order to help them deal with the damage.

The ability of trees seal their wounds (compartmentalize) varies by species, age, season of injury, vigor, wound location, exposed tissues and other factors. One goal of current tree breeding research is to identify tree species that have superior wound-closure capabilities. But until all of our trees are super closers or learn how to run away or fight back, it’s up to us to give our growing friends the best environment we can.

Warnings

If your tree needs pruning and you decide to call in a “professional,” don’t ever use anyone who advertises that they “top trees” or perform “tree surgery.” Those phrases should be red flags pointing out the people who aren’t properly trained in tree care at all!
Each time you insert something into a tree (like a nail) and then remove it, you generally break the barrier or compartment that the tree initially formed around the first wound. The more you open up wounds, the more likely decay will form or a nice, easy entryway will be provided for an unwanted insect or disease organism.

Facts

Trees react to wounds chemically and physically, forming several types of cellular barriers that attempt to wall off, compartmentalize or seal off the injury.
Wood exposed by wounds is subject to decay. If a tree can’t seal its wood off quickly enough, the wood may degrade, resulting in holes or cavities.

Tips

Don’t bang up your tree. If you must attach something to it, use a small nail or screw to minimize the wound hole.
The best thing you can do to aid a tree that sustains intentional, unintentional or unexpected wounds is to provide it with an optimum environment in which to grow.

Definitions

Branch Bark Collar: The area at the base of a branch where the branch attaches to the trunk or to a larger branch. Pruning cuts should always be made just outside the collar to preserve that tissue that helps seal off the pruning wound.
Woundwood: Callus tissue that forms at the wound site. Its presence means the tree is sealing – trees “seal,” they don’t “heal.

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