The Big 'uns

When you train as an arborist, you start realizing how cross-disciplinary the profession is: laws and planning, tree identification and establishment, land management and ecology, tree biology and plant pathology, biomechanics and decay, are just some of the many facets of looking after trees. You must, at some point, dip into the world of fungi. When I say 'world' I mean ‘too big to comprehend.’ Fungi is a massive taxonomic kingdom and easy to get lost within because of its large size and because it is a world of many wonders. While it's hard enough to identify similar looking trees and shrubs, the fungal kingdom supplies an almost insurmountable challenge for those that start to take a real interest in what species are out there.   Who doesn't love finding a massive fungal fruiting body? In my area, the typical eye-catching fungus you are going to find is Dryad's Saddle (Cerioporus squamosus), Artist fungus (Gandoderma), and large orange clusters of Chicken-of-the-Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus).   How would we get on without fungi? No bread, no beer, no fizzy drinks, no stilton cheese and obviously no sautéed mushrooms with steak. Enjoy those macro-fungi when you can. They are just a fleeting phase in the reduction of a tree back to soil. Pictured are some of my photos collected over the years of various fungi sticking out of a tree.

Northern Tooth fungus

Birch polypore

Chicken of the Woods

Turkey Tail fungus

Dryads Saddle

Bracket and Crust fungi

Some fungi are beautiful like a flower. This oyster mushroom brightened my day when I found it and I hope it brightens up yours.

Bracket and Crust fungi Click to View six ways mushrooms can save the world

Cut Into the Brown

My collection of tree-related photographs shows many arboricultural 'fails.’ Where I live, it's not much of a chore to find them. There are several instances where residents or contractors have cut back hard a conifer hedge. I call it 'Cutting into the brown', as no green foliage is left in these cases. Although a conifer like the common yew (Taxus) can be treated in this way and will resprout (hence its use as a hedge plant for many centuries), most scale-needled conifers are incapable of producing new buds and thus new foliage from their older twigs and stems. They only grow and expand their crown from their existing green foliage. For that reason, it can be argued that Arborvitae (Thuja) make a pretty poor hedges in the long-term, and are very finicky to manage. They are mostly planted for a quick green screen, with not much thought given as to how often they need to be reduced, making size control difficult. What can be more surprising is how long some of these over-pruned and dead hedge plants are kept. Some that I have seen remain at the front of a property for over a decade, as if the owner is thinking that perhaps, in Year Six, the hedge will magically come back to life? The lesson here is don't cut a scale-needled conifer into 'the brown', unless you want to kill that part of it.

An arborvitae (Thuja) hedge row that was cut back to bare wood with just a dust mop of green foliage at the top. These conifers will not respond by putting on new foliage.

A view of the same arborvitae hedge row from the opposite side. Once a conifer is cut into bare wood, it is beyond saving and will need to be removed and replaced.

Sadly this arborvitae (Thuja) hedge row is unrecoverable. It is beyond saving and will need to be removed and replaced.

A healthy example of Arborvitae (Thuja). It’s a good idea to place arborvitae in the landscape where they do not need to be managed for their size and should be left to alone without pruning.

Click for more information on how to prune arborvitae

Egg Mushroom Appetizers

Ingredients 6 large hard-boiled eggs 6 medium-sized / cocktail tomatoes 1 Tbsp mayonnaise  Optional: Fingerling potatoes, cucumber, olives, lettuce, carrots Instructions: Peel off the egg shell. Cut a thin slice off the bottom of the eggs so that it does not tip over. Cut off about 1/4 of the tomatoes and hollow them out. Place the hallowed tomatoes on the eggs. Pipe some mayonnaise dots on the tomato.

Thanks for Reading and Happy Planting! Faith Faith Appelquist President & Founder