To stake or not your young tree

Water and nutrients is not the only thing your tree needs in early years of its life. Proper support is what your tree really needs in addition to all other vital things. You don’t want your tree de-structured and crooked and to avoid that you have to provide it perfect support. Lack of support can cause your tree to bend in one direction permanently.

Staking properly:

The best and most tried method of keeping your tree vertically straight is to put long stakes into the ground on either side and attach loops around the tree. Don’t keep the loop too tight as it will restrict the trunk to grow openly. Never put a stake on only one side of your tree and the reason is that it restricts the further growth of tree.

Staking may not be necessary:

Staking is not necessary if you think that there are no forces that can shake the ball of roots inside the ground. But if there is strong wind and any other force than can do this effectively then you have to stake your tree. The ball of roots should not be in motion because it will make tree unable to properly get grip on soil and this will of course disturb the structure of your beloved tree.

Before staking be clear that your tree needs support or not. If you are staking your tree without any need you are not repairing your tree but you are harming it. Staking always causes abrasion or rashes on the stem of tree thus you always should avoid staking if your tree does not need it. Staking also snatches away the natural look of your garden and offer hazards for people walking or running across the yard. So don’t do staking unless you don’t have any other option at all.

How to do staking in best way:

Let us consider in detail the staking process. Simply take three stakes and tie each of them separately near the base of stem. If you are using some type of tether to put off rope burn on your tree, that would be an even superior solution. They are perfectly bark friendly and you can buy these easily from any gardening shop. It is the best alternative to the bare rope as it decreases a lot the quantity of friction your tree bears.

Don’t keep stakes un-necessarily:

Remove the stakes as soon as you figure out that your tree does not need any more support. Always keep in mind that every artificial thing you do to your tree causes some type of harm to it. You can also temporarily put off the stakes if the weather forecast is predicting low winds in your area. The aim is clear and that is give your tree as natural environment as possible so that it does not loose any of the vitality.

Well if your tree really needs good staking, do provide it that as it is really important in certain scenarios. So you should have well knowledge that when your tree really needs staking. Staking a tree that does not need it and not staking a tree that needs it can be equally damaging for your tree. An expert can be consulted to get a sincere advice in this matter.

What’s the best shape for your tree?

You can shape your tree in the way you want through different pruning techniques. Remember, there are seven major styles in which one can prune the tree and each one has its own advantages for specific conditions. Always chop off the un-needed branches during the growth of the tree while tie the required branches in proper shape. This will allow you to shape the tree in the certain way you want. There are some very advanced shapes of trees but of course for them you need equally advanced pruning methods. You can make use of many books on this topic available in library.

Always get your tree to a certain shape when it is not giving fruits or equivalently we can say that all the tying and pruning should occur in the fall because this encourages the shape to stick. Let us expand on different shapes from which you can choose:

• Every one knows about the standard trees and they don’t need any detailed explanation. Just remember, the shape which comes in your mind first when you think about a tree is standard shape. To give your tree a standard shape simply let it grow and prune normally.

• Bush tree is the second type of tree shapes. One can turn the standard tree into bush tree through pruning. Bush tree differs only from standard tree in length of the trunk or stem. Branches take the same shape but trunk is little shorter than that of standard tree. The significance of such tree becomes clear when you need to grow a tree but don’t want to block the view. I once grew my tree as bush tree just because I did not want to block the awesome view of Rocky Mountains.

• Most of my readers will not be familiar with a type of tree known as Cordon. The most interesting thing about this tree is that it has only one stem and has no branches at all. It is planted at a specific angle so that it arches up over the earth. Branches are removed manually as quickly as they are grown. They are beneficial in a situation when you don’t have much space for the tree or you have to fit it in a square footage. The only thing that may be a point of worry for many is that this type of tree does not give much fruit.

• Espalier trees have one single vertical trunk in center while many horizontal branches on each side. They give a lot of fruits unlike Cordon tree and can be easily grown in long rows. Always use this tree shape if you grow orchard because you can fit many orchards in the area you have using this tree shape.

• There is a very little difference between fan trees and Espalier trees. In this shape there is again a single vertical branch but the other connected branches grow as a standard tree, they are not horizontal. This tree shape is best when you have to save space and are used as an alternative of espalier trees for certain types of trees that do better with sloped branches.

• Step over Espalier is another type of Espalier tree. It is not so much different from Espalier. Step Espalier has only one horizontal branch which is very near to earth surface. They offer lots of fruit and at the same time gives border for what you wish. This tree shape is amazing at least for me because they fence my garden so well and bears a lot of fruit….. I am loving it!!!

Each shape has both its merits and demerits and you should think a lot before choosing the shape for your tree. You can finalize your decision after taking good help from local nursery employees. Getting your tree to a specific shape is not difficult task at all and you just need some guidance from experts at the beginning. Once you get the initial kick the rest of the process is very easy and simple.

Do you have excess Fruit?? Go to Farmer’s Market!

Image via Wikipedia

The joy of maintaining the tree and eating the delicious fruit are the main motivations for entering the tree growing world. Personally, I think that one can easily carry out a quite profitable scheme with fruit trees. You can do that with no trouble by operating a fruit stand or by taking an active part in a farmer’s market.

I was bit sad and depressed when I moved to Florida because I had left behind countless years of hard work which made me able to establish the luxurious lawn. But I readily overcome this depression and planned to establish a more beautiful and elegant lawn in my new house. I was unfortunate because the previous owner of my new house had taken no care of the lawn. Lots of un-maintained grass was the only thing I could see in my new lawn.

New climate, New trees!

I planned to do some new trees here in the new climate. I was happy because I was able to grow some trees that I had never planted before just because they did not suit the earlier climate. So I decided to get few orange trees because they grow so happily all over Florida. I had some very bad experiences with the trees I have grown earlier and I was totally unaware of the fact that orange tree is so easy to maintain. Valencia orange was my final decision to start off with just because they are the most popular orange genre of the Florida area.

The practical work started after I was done with the decision that which tree should I do. I worked 3 days to dig all the necessary holes and put the trees in them. I bought three trees of Valencia orange and that’s why it took so many days to prepare the holes. I planted the trees so well that I was proud of myself. Future years were as great as the initial experience. Trees grew vertically straight, caught no disease at all and most of all gave fruits exactly when they were expected to.

Lots of fruit:

First three or four years were not too good as far as the quantity of fruits were concerned. Still the fruit was not so less and I always got them for my personal use. I enjoyed a lot of orange juice in those years but I was bit worried deep inside because I was not getting so much amount of fruit from the three trees. I was not depressed at all but still I was not too happy as I had heard that people get thousands and thousands of oranges from several trees. I started considering myself bit unfortunate for that!!

But after one year my orange trees really took off. I was amazed one day when suddenly I looked at the trees and found 5 times as many fruits there as I had grown in any earlier time. Now I was unable to think what to do of so many fruit. I harvested them all and kept in my kitchen for few days but I was constantly thinking what to do with all this fruit now. My neighbor then suggested me that I should sell at Farmer’s market and that suggestion attracted me a lot.

The first day at Farmer’s market was awesome and I easily earned back all the money which I spent on the original trees. I felt my self so lucky when I found out that I was able to attract more costumers than any of the other participant of Farmer’s market. I then became a regular participant of Farmer’s market. I was happy that I was able to earn handsome amount of money by just selling oranges! I happily thought that this was the best use of those oranges as one human can’t eat them all. Final words, if you have got excess quantity of fruit, never eat it all or throw away. You can make a better use of them by simply selling them at Farmer’s market. That will earn you a lot of extra cash and that I assure you…!!