MamasHealth.com Home Gardening Tips Aphids Avoid pests Beneficial bugs Clean houseplants Climbing hydrangea Coffee grounds Community supported agriculture Composting Container gardens Design a vegetable garden Egg shells Finding healthy plants Fresh flowers Flowering bulbs Food not lawns Freedom gardens Garden soil Garden tools Get rid of scale bugs Greenhouse Grow seeds indoors Growing begonias Growing garlic Growing organic veggies Growing tomatoes How to buy a tree Importance of trees Landscape shading Long grass Mulch Potatoes Prevent frost damage Prepare vegetable bed Prevent tree fungus Prevent weeds Prune boxwoods Rainwater collection Reduce garden injuries Rooftop gardens Seed balls Saving seeds Tips for tree growth Transplanting from pots Tree structure Venus fly traps Watering tips Watering your garden Links Email Mama Attract Hummingbirds Tips to Attract Butterflies Green living Tips to save the earth Unique recycled gifts Food not bombs Buy green energy Green energy Reuse carbon dioxide	Tips to Grow your Trees Do not cut the top off of your tree. If you cut the top off of a tree, bushy, weakly attached limbs usually grow back higher than the original branches. Cutting the top of a tree is one of the worst things you can do for the health of a tree. It starves the tree by drastically reducing its food-making ability and makes the tree more susceptible to insects and disease. Do not girdle. Girdling is any activity that injures the bark of a tree trunk and extends around much of the trunk's circumference. Injuries to the tree's bark caused by lawnmowers and weed trimmers, destroy the tree's layers that conduct water and minerals from the roots to the leaves and return the food produced by the leaves to the rest of the tree. Water your tree. Because trees are very hearty, people tend to forget to water them. Watering trees is critical to their health. Nearly all trees benefit from long, slow watering. Controlled, gradual release allows the water to thoroughly soak in and filter deeply into the soil. Long, slow watering will improve the drought-tolerance of your trees during periods of hot, dry weather. Young and newly planted trees especially need a lot of water and should be put on a watering schedule best suited for the tree type, soil type and time of year. Place mulch around the tree. Mulch insulates soil, retains moisture, keeps out weeds, prevents soil compaction, and reduces lawnmower and weed trimmer damage. The best materials for mulch are: Bark chunks or shredded bark that is at least 3/8 inch in size, pine needles one-year old wood chips leaves that were shredded and composted for at least three months The worst materials for mulch are: Fresh grass clippings or fresh wood chips Fresh organic mulch Organic mulch that smells bad Peat moss or sawdust Pebbles, rocks, or cobble stones Bricks or pavement or black plastic Ground-up rubber tires
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