[Urban Forests]

Nation’s Latest Fire Situation at a Glance – Maps, Reports and Forecasts

I have created a collection of the most current national wildfire maps online. These fire situation maps display real time forest fires and conditions that are indicators of increased fire risk. It also will link you to daily situation reports on the most severe fires.

Tragic North American Wildfire Disasters Since 1950
Essential Wildfire Terms
Protect Your Property From Wildfire

Current fire danger map from Wildland Fire Assessment System/USFS

Global Positioning Satellite receivers (GPSrs) are more than just car accessories that move you around in your automobile. Portable GPS receivers  can be a life saver if you find yourself exploring or working in a forest and lose your sense of direction. Getting lost in the woods can be unnerving to even the most experienced woodsman.  Here is a tip or two on how to use GPS technology if you become disoriented in a forest.

A receiver with a track log function can keep a visit to the woods from turning into a night spent trying to find the truck. Most reasonably priced GSPrs have a track log function. You will certainly have this functionality in the Garmin eTrex series (called the tracks function) and in the Magellan Triton series (called the trails function). You can purchase the basic models for around $100.

Get yourself a receiver and take it along on visits to the woods. Before going on your walk, turn the receiver on, let it pick up the satellites and leave on auto mode. The auto mode saves the route slowly, conserves battery life but provides a more than adequate track back to the truck. At your final destination, stop and save the track log. You can then easily use Garmin’s TracBack feature or Magellan’s Reverse Trail to find you way out.

Features Needed in an Outdoor GPS Receiver

Garmin GPS 60C Photo

There are 5 herbicide application methods most commonly used for woody-stem plant control. They all have their advantages and disadvantages and are not always appropriate for specific conditions and cost constraints.  I provide a situational graphic to illustrate each of these techniques.

Controlling Woody Stem Plants
Cleaning Forestry Pesticide Spray Equipment

You need to fertilize trees and shrubs to insure their good health which prepares them to fight off pests, disease, and environmental stresses. A proper fertilization program can’t solve all tree problems and over fertilization can do harm. Still, tree fertilizing at the appropriate time and with the appropriate formulation will help your tree(s).

Ideally, growing trees should be fertilized throughout the year. The greatest amounts should be applied during the early spring and summer months. Right now is an excellent time to fertilize trees.

For young trees, good times to put out fertilizer is late March through early June, and while you are at it, proper mulching will aid in proper nutrient and water uptake. When a tree reaches the desired height you may decrease the fertilizer application to only once a year.

How To Mulch a Tree
Tree Fertilizing Basics

Water is the single most limiting essential resource for a tree’s survival and growth. Most of us understand the need to water trees during dry times, especially in the landscape. But what we often forget is that a tree can also be harmed by too much water. Unfortunately, the symptoms for a water-starved tree can be the same as symptoms caused by water-logged tree roots.

Symptoms for both under-watering and over-watering are wilted and scorched leaves. Both conditions can prevent tree roots from effectively transporting water to the top of the tree and that tree will express these symptoms. In addition, too much tree water can also shut down sufficient oxygen to the roots. Some tree species can handle “wet feet” but many trees can not.

How To Water A Tree
How a Tree Uses Water
Manage Trees During Drought

Trees use seeds as their principal means of establishing the next generation in the natural world. A fascinating but poorly understood chain of events have to happen perfectly to start a baby tree from seed. A viable tree seed has to be dispersed at an appropriate location under conditions that promote seed germination.

There are two major causes for unsuccessful tree seed germination under artificial conditions. Hard seed coated tree species and trees with dormant seed embryos complicate the seed planting process. Nurserymen have to expose some tree seeds to unique treatments to assure germination. They use two main processes called stratification and scarification

I have created this seed guide for preparing seeds from common trees for planting. I list or link to most of the common North American tree species with adequate information on propagating these trees from seed.

Oak Tree Sapling / Acorn Photo,  Getty Image

Hallie Morse Daggett was the first woman hired on as a fire observer by the U.S. Forest Service in 1913. Ms. Daggett staffed an original log cabin fire lookout called Eddy Gulch Lookout. The cabin was at the top of 6,444 foot Klamath Peak in the Siskiyou Mountains of northern California. The State of California passed an amendment granting women the right to vote only two years earlier, in 1911.

Hallie Daggett, Forest Guard and First USFS Woman Lookout
Hallie M. Daggett, Early Woman Lookout – American Forestry, 1914

Historic USFS Photo of Hallie Daggett and Eddy Gulch Lookout

Here are photos of trees from one nursery I found within a mile of my home that sells inferior trees – every single day. People are paying premium prices at this family operated nursery but are not getting a premium tree.

Always choose your trees with care and from a quality grower! An example of a dealer to avoid: the nursery looks “weedy” both on the lot and inside the pots. There is often a relationship between weedy nurseries and poor plants (see photo). These nurseries never guarantee their plant upon return receipt.

I give you four simple steps to take when purchasing a tree from a nursery to protect yourself from buying an unhealthy tree. Even when offered a bargain price for a tree, it is never worth it if you have to nurse a sick tree.

Picking a Healthy Tree in Four Easy Steps

Local Tree Nursery Photo – Photo by Steve Nix, Licensed to About.com

Accurate estimates for wildland tree plantations in the United States are difficult to obtain. Educated guesses by forestry experts suggest that by 1952, there were nearly 5 million acres of tree plantations in the United States.

Not much is known about tree planting before 1927 when the U.S. Forest Service began keeping records. There were few tree nursery systems that could mass produce trees. When there were tree plantings, no records were kept. It is known that trees have been planted in significant numbers in the wild for over 200 years.

The latest complete USFS survey suggests there are 56 million acres of trees planted in the United States. Four million acres are planted in the northern states, 38 million in the southern states and 14 million in the west.

A Tree Planting History and Timeline for the United States
Tour of a Seedling Nursery and Harvesting Operation

Photo © 2007 Steve Nix, licensed to About.com

Timber and tree theft most often happens in one of three ways:
(1) Thieves can set up a harvest directly on your property or will move over on you from an adjacent ownership, (2) thieves will offer absurdly low prices for timber knowing that the landowner has no idea of the value, (3) and thieves can actually steal trees after you have approved and allowed the harvest.

South Carolina and the Society of American Foresters have published a bullet list of do’s/don’ts on timber theft. Hang around your forest or timber sale as much as possible, walk your lines periodically and look for the following -

Be suspicious if:
-your logger is also hauling wood from adjacent timber tracts.
-logs and paperwood are mixed on the same truck.
-cutter is hauling at odd times of the day, on Sundays, or at night.
-boundary trees have been cut or removed.
-you can’t contact your wood buyer or he can’t seem to get you a payment.

Avoid being ripped off by:
-knowing the value of your timber.
-knowing the amount of timber you are selling.
-bidding all but the most marginal of sales.
-checking the logger’s reputation/previous work.
-drawing up a contract!
-marking the boundary of the sale and property lines.
-finding a good forestry consultant who will help you with all the above.

With the cooperation of Sarofax and iPhone app developer Ash Mishra, I want to offer you TreeBook for free on iTunes. The app provides you with a pocket version of my tree leaf key at forestry.about.com.

Sarofax’s TreeBook is leaf based and developed for beginning  students unfamiliar with tree identification.  It is designed as a beginning student guide using those leaved trees most commonly seen in North American forests. The app provides a system similar to the one on this forestry site for identifying the 100 most common trees with images, descriptions and links to more online information.

TreeBook supports a tree leaf key and provides a botanical glossary of the most common tree identifiers. TreeBook is especially helpful for identifying  the most common Eastern  U.S. hardwood trees.

The thrill of identifying trees is much enhanced by collecting leaves, mounting them in an exhibit and using them as a “personal” tree identification field guide.  A leaf collection, when properly done and retrieved from local forests is the best way to refresh your tree identification skills.

The best time to collect leaves is as new leaves begin to mature! You can start your collection in late April as trees experience their initial green flush. The best leaf samples are usually collected early but only when the leaf reaches mature size. With a little extra work, you can find great leaves throughout summer and fall.

Build a Leaf Press
Starting Your First Leaf Collection

Leaf collecting and pressing is not an expensive hobby. A properly pressed and dried leaf becomes an attractive specimen and adds to the usefulness and beauty of your leaf collection. I have developed and built an inexpensive leaf press for my personal use. Here is how I did it…

Here is How I Make a Leaf Collection
How to Build a Tree Leaf Press

Photo of finished leaf press – Steve Nix

Quercus virginiana or Southern live oak is a large, sprawling, picturesque tree, usually graced with Spanish moss and strongly reminiscent of the Old South. Live oak is one of the broadest spreading of the oaks, providing large areas of deep, inviting shade. It is the state tree of Georgia. Reaching 40 to 60 feet in height with a 60 to 100 foot spread and usually possessing many sinuously curved trunks and branches, live oak is an impressive sight for any large-scale landscape.

Live Oak Image Gallery
Managing Live Oaks
Trees of Windsor Ruin

Windsor Ruin Live Oak – Photo by Steve Nix

Tropical hardwood hammock forests are found in the southern half of Florida, with large concentrations in the Florida Everglades and in the Florida Keys. South Florida hardwood hammocks develop only in areas protected from fire, flood and salt water and on limestone outcrops or “ridges” several feet above water level. The roots of the trees must be out of the water and must have adequate aeration. A tropical hardwood hammock ecosystem is complex and critical to the health of the Florida Everglades.

A Tropical Hardwood Hammock and Tropical Forest Ecosystem
Wildlife in a Tropical Hardwood Hammock

Gumbo-limbo Hardwood – Photo by Kim Nix

You can actually kill a tree if you apply too much fertilizer.  It can happen when you fail to read the fertilizer label for application rate and formulation ratios.  It can happen if you spill fertilizer over a tree’s root zone and too much fertilizer introduces toxic “salt” levels to the root system.

In my report, The Problem of Tree Over-fertilization, I provide you with the best tree fertilizer formulas and how much to apply them. I also recommend a treatment if you do over fertilize.

Also, check out my report on How to Fertilize a Tree…

A visit to the Everglades National Park became one of the most fascinating adventures I’ve had in years. I now see the Florida Everglades as a complex ecosystem and natural wonder, not just a sea of saw grass, and well worth a visit. It is also home to the strangest tree in the United States – the strangler fig.

This fascinating strangler fig starts as an “air plant” on a doomed host tree, usually cabbage palm. As the tropical hardwood hammock tree grows and sends roots to the ground, it “strangles” its host, eventually kills the tree and consumes the nutrients it provides. The strangler fig is of major importance to a tropical hammock community and often produces the only food available to fruit-eating wildlife during certain seasons.

Strangler Fig in Naples, Florida – Steve Nix Photo

Weeping Higan cherry grows in a graceful weeping habit and is one of the most beautiful trees on this planet when in full bloom in spring. The light pink flowers cover the branches before the leaves emerge and fall rapidly after bloom to give the appearance of fresh snow. My mother is the proud owner of the cherry in the photo and I have a collection of gallery photos for viewing.

Weeping Higan Cherry Photo Gallery

Dr. Mike Dirr from his Hardy Trees and Shrubs about weeping cherry: “this is one of the longest lived flowering cherries. For the gardener who wants one cherry that will provide many years of enjoyment, this tree and its cultivars are possibly the best choices.”

How to Manage and ID Weeping Higan Cherry

Steve Nix – Photo of Weeping Higan Cherry

Transplanting a tree seedling or sapling can be the most stressful time in it’s entire life. Moving a tree for its original comfort zone to a new location should be done under the right conditions while preserving most of the life-supporting root system. Remember, when transplanted to a new location, the plant has the same number of leaves to support but will have a smaller root system to supply water and nutrients.

Major stress-related problems can often result from this inevitable loss of roots, especially feeder roots. This is called transplant shock and results in increased vulnerability to drought, insects, diseases and other problems. Transplant shock will remain a planting concern until the natural balance between the root system and the leaves of the transplanted tree is restored.

Of all newly planted trees that do not survive, most die during this very important root-establishment period. The health of a tree and its ultimate survival can be assured if practices that favor establishment of the root system become the ultimate gold standard. This takes persistence and involves regular care during the first three years following transplanting.

Tree Transplant Shock

Ever heard of a Hercules-club or Devil’s Walking stick? Aralia spinosa is the scientific name of a tree that naturally grows in much of the Southeast but can live nearly anywhere in North America. Very few landscapers recommend the tree but some do with reservation and caution.

Young Hercules’ clubs have massive amounts of thorns on their trunks and branches. The tree is actually considered an undesirable species in the wild because of an ability of the tree to aggressively take over a site (called invasive). These trees can actually cause physical distress when grabbed or fallen on.

Hercules’ club is an early spring bloomer and you should start seeing those blooms very soon. The blooms flower in panicles of pale green flowers which are always located at the end of the branches. Each flower is followed by a follicle fruit that dries and splits to reveal a shiny black seed.

Over time, trees (see photo) replace with bumps the thorns it had earlier in its shrubby tree life. As the tree ages, the bark overgrows the thorns forming odd corky bumps. Eventually, the tips of the thorns will either break off or be completely buried within the bark. It is a very interesting plant to look at during all stages of life.

The leaves are pinnate with seven to nine leaflets. The leaflets are deep green and shiny; the petioles are red and a red spine is usually present on the rachis between each pair of leaflets.

Discussion: The Devil’s Walkingstick, Aralia spinosa
More on Devil’s Walkingstick

Mature Hercules-club Bark – Photo by Jane Kirkland