You bought your brand new house.  Great!  Your hopes and dreams are being realized.  You love your new community.  You’re on a roll!  Good for you!  While I don’t want to rain on your parade, I must warn you:  Trouble lurks, right on your front lawn.

Let’s get into what that trouble may be: When developers build their new communities, putting up houses at speeds that amaze and mystify, they do not often give much thought to what trees they’re going to plant on the front lawns of those new homes.  Only when the homes are built, and everything else is signed off on, do the developers have their contracted landscape companies come in and plop a few trees on the front lawns of each of hundreds of houses, in one fell swoop.  Often, those trees are planted incorrectly, but that is a subject for another article from your humble Certified Arborist.  What I will deal with, today, is the failure of the new trees you see on the front lawns of newly built houses in new real estate developments.

Developers and builders buy trees by the millions.  As their bottom line is what they value, above all, not much thought is put into the quality of the trees they install.  They look for the most trees for the least cash outlay.  They want trees that grow fast and don’t require much work, at least during the time they still can be held accountable for them by new homeowners.  These homeowners have other things on their minds when they first move in.  They don’t pay attention to their lawn trees, usually.  In time, within the first three to five years, those trees grow and grow and——- It’s a bush on a stick, maybe two, maybe more, that now sit on their front lawn.  In the biz, we see these bush on a stick trees, daily.

What are the ramifications, health-wise, for these trees?  First off, let’s make sure we’re on the same page:  A bush on a stick is a tree that looks like a, a, a —-well, a bush on a stick.  The canopy is so thick that you cannot see individual branches, you cannot see any daylight through that canopy, and the effect is simply a large blob of brush on a thin, elongated trunk.  Got the picture?  Simply drive through your nearest, new real estate development to see things more clearly.

When a tree is a bush on a stick, sunlight cannot penetrate through the canopy, nor can air reach the leaves in healthy amounts.  As a result, certain predictable, and harmful, things happen, in the canopy.  Numerous pathogenic processes can initiate:  Fungal spores can diffuse into the canopy, their settling on leaves aided by slowed air flow.  These spores can germinate quickly, because of the raised ambient humidity in the tight canopy.  Different insect pests seek refuge in the tight, dark, humid, inner canopy.  Gall wasps can infest the interior space.  Birds can nest in the dark recesses, and while the birds, themselves, do not actively harm the tree, nesting materials they bring in may contain more pathogens that can attack the tree.  Two of the most important factors for good tree health, sunlight and fresh air, are seen to be greatly limited.  Additionally, with the clumping of the canopy, poor branch form becomes the rule as the tree struggles to grow in a more “normal” way.  Branches cross each other, branches rub each other, included bark forms in branch crotches where two branches diverge, leading to poor attachments and, eventually, branch failure.

When we examine the types of trees, as above, we see the same things over and over, again:  Leaf spot, caused by fungal pathogens, and galls, round wooden balls that harbor the larvae of gall wasps and are caused by female wasps.  We also see the poor branch structure referenced above.  All of these conditions can lead a given tree into a downward mortality spiral and premature death.  So, what can be done?

The most important thing you can do for a bush on a stick is to have the experts at Happy Tree come out, trim and prune the tree to promote sunlight penetration and airflow.  By carefully removing up to 25% of the overgrown canopy, Happy Tree can restore airflow and sunlight to a given tree and remove it from the bush on a stick category.  Trees that can breathe and receive the beneficial rays of the sun are, in fact, happy trees, and at Happy Tree we can make sure your trees are headed in the right direction towards their long-term health and survival. The benefits are long-lasting, and because we prune your trees with care, you will immediately see a difference in their overall appearance:  They’ll not only be healthier, they’ll look healthier, as well.

Please give Happy Tree a call, today, at: 512-212-0010.  We want to turn your bush on a stick into a happy, healthy tree.  Thanks!

If you live in the Greater Austin Area, then it’s a safe bet that you have seen ball moss, at one time or another.  Have you ever wondered exactly what you’re looking at, and whether or not it can harm the trees you see it in?  Let’s try to “get to the root” of what you’ve observed.

About Ball Moss

First off, Ball Moss, Tillandsia recurvata, while certainly appearing to be a ball-like growth, of sorts, in the trees, is actually not a moss.  In fact, Ball Moss is in the Bromeliaceae Family, a Family that includes the familiar Pineapple.  It is an epiphyte, which means it does not grow in the soil but, rather, it anchors itself on a structure to gain support.  Its roots, called “pseudo roots,” are used to anchor itself to its host.  (The beautiful orchid, so prized by flower lovers, also has epiphyte members in its family.)  The pseudo roots are not used to gather moisture and nutrients.  Ball moss gets its moisture from the air, nutrients from windblown dust, and fixes its nitrogen using available bacteria in the tree.  It uses photosynthesis to produce its own energy.

Ball moss reproduces by true seed production. Most seedlings germinate on tiny branches or on the vertical bark of tree hosts. As with many other epiphyte seeds, most researchers believe ball moss seeds are dispersed by the wind. Some believe birds serve as a major seed dispersal agent. The seeds are armed with fine, straight hairs that aid in attachment to potential host species.

Is Ball Moss a Parasite?

So, is ball moss harmful to trees?  Strictly speaking, since ball moss is not a true parasite (an invader that draws nutrients from a host species), it is not harmful to its tree hosts.  However, let’s not be too quick to dismiss ball moss as being OK for your tree’s health and continued survival.

Ball moss prefers high humidity, low light, low airflow conditions.  These exact conditions are present in trees that are never pruned (trimmed).  Over time, if ball moss thrives, it can come to dominate a tree’s above-ground surface.  What happens, then, is that the tree’s branches receive less light to stimulate new growth.  With reduced growth, reduced leaves, the tree loses more and more of its photosynthetic capabilities, leading to less energy production for growth and immune response.  The tree then becomes locked into a downward mortality spiral which, ultimately, leads to declining health and death.  It should be noted, here, that some researchers also believe that ball moss can compete for trace nutrients and moisture in the canopy, as well as shading the tree’s growth areas.

Happy Tree Service of Austin Can Help

With all of the above in mind, should you see ball moss in your trees, we encourage you to contact us at Happy Tree Service of Austin.  Our skilled crew is ready, willing and able to help rid your tree of ball moss, by mechanical means:  We trim and prune the tree to remove the deadwood that provides ideal growing areas for ball moss.  We also climb into the high canopy and pick the ball moss off.  While doing this, we trim your tree to encourage lower humidity, more airflow and more light penetration.  That discourages future ball moss growth.

We can guarantee that a majority of your ball moss will be gone by the time we’re done with your job.

We hope you’ve enjoyed learning about ball moss. Please give us a call whenever you have concerns about the continued good health of your trees!