Talking Trees with Davey Tree

Eco-Friendly Landscape Practices

February 24, 2022 The Davey Tree Expert Company Season 2 Episode 8
Talking Trees with Davey Tree
Eco-Friendly Landscape Practices
Show Notes Transcript

Joe Berg from Davey's East Bay office in California shares some advice on how to incorporate eco-friendly practices into your landscape routine, as well as a fun story about popular client Joe's office worked with. 

In this episode we cover:

  • Native trees and minimal water requirements (0:41) 
  • Smart watering (2:28)
  • Mulching and soil compaction (4:25) 
  • Fertilizers (8:51)
  • How Joe started his job (11:59)
  • Famous NFL client who brought trees back from where he traveled (13:39)
  • Pesticides and fungicides (16:12)
  • Native trees for the West (18:19)
  • Monterey pines in California (20:54)

To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.

To learn more about the benefits of native trees, read our blog, Benefits of Planting Trees Native to Your Region.
To learn more about the best time to water, read our blog, Morning (Not Night) is the Best Time to Water Plants in the Summer.
To learn more about drip irrigation, read our blog, How to Water Trees and Shrubs with Drip Irrigation (and Tips!).
To learn more about soil compaction, read our blog, How to Tell if Soil is Compacted Around Trees and What to do.

Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
Twitter: @DaveyTree
Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company

Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!

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Doug Oster: Welcome to the Davey Tree Expert Company's podcast Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer.

I'm excited this week to be joined by Joe Berg. He's the district manager in the East Bay Office of the Davey Tree Expert Company in San Ramon, California. I'm excited because we're talking about eco-friendly landscape practices. How are you doing, Joe?

Joe Berg: Very well, Doug. Thanks for having me on.

Doug: When you're thinking eco-friendly, what's the first thing that comes to mind when we're talking about our trees?

Joe: From the context of work, I have most of my knowledge is really just the West and in California in particular. We've been experiencing some pretty extreme weather and a lot of drought in the last 20 years or so. We like to focus mostly on native trees and also trees that have minimal water requirements, which will actually last better in a landscape that is so ever-changing out here.

Doug: Talk a little bit about what's been going on out there because, as I often say to arborists, not enough water is always, to me, worse than too much. Too much is a problem, but gosh, drought situations from a standpoint of the landscape is depressing.

Joe: Yes. Everybody likes to have green grass and green plants around. It definitely adds a lot of benefits to our lives, and trees definitely do the same thing. With our climate record, at least in the last couple of decades and really just the long term, that changed. That we're getting less and less rain every year, and so trees that are actually already established on properties are suffering. We need to switch our paradigm in the way we're thinking about planting these trees. Trees shut down. They need water, they need sunlight, they need nutrients in order to survive, and if they're not getting what they need, just like you or I, they don't do very well in their lifespan.

Doug: Let's talk a little bit about smart watering then. If there is watering to be done, how do we do it in a way that uses the water in the best way possible?

Joe: Sure. Most landscapes, at least out here in the West, are fitted with underground irrigation. A lot of places back east in the Midwest and back east are a little different, but we have various ways that we water our plants. Trees, in particular, like to have a very slow release of water, and directly into the soil. That would mean bubblers, drip irrigation. That gets the water directly in the soil.

The big problem that we have with watering, which a lot of people have on their landscapes, is a lot of people have spray irrigation. Spray irrigation not only just throws the water into the air, which you get some of that being evaporated, and a lot of that actually doesn't reach the tree roots. Basically wastes water, and trees can actually develop diseases by water being sprayed in the air, and really the water's not getting exactly where it needs to go, which is basically in the top 6 to 12, 18 inches of soil depending on the size of the tree.

Doug: It drives me nuts when I see that type of watering going on. Here in the East, sometimes these will be on timers. I'll be going into the radio studio, and it's raining like crazy and the sprinklers are on. What a waste of water. The same thing when they're spraying it around. To get it down to where it can be used. As you said, spraying all that water up on the leaves, there could be fungal issues when we-- That's great to have underground water or drip irrigation, that sort of thing.

With that, are you also mulching to keep the soil evenly moist?

Joe: Yes, absolutely. That's another good point about this too, is that people don't realize the impact of a raindrop, or the impact of a drop of water as it comes out of a sprinkler head is that even though those drops are many and very small, they actually create soil compaction. Soil compaction basically damages the soil almost permanently, and can be totally avoided by changing these systems.

One thing that we really like to see, which is actually probably the most cost-effective, or most effective technique in terms of preserving your trees, is doing proper mulching. We were looking at forest-type situations that have a foot or more, sometimes a couple of feet of leaf litter that all decomposed gradually and provide a very good soil environment for the trees' roots.

Our urban landscapes don't really get that. They get most of that debris taken out. Especially in California, which-- I'm originally from the Midwest, but Californians love to take away everything from their landscape and leave bare soil. To me, it just blows my mind because it just damages the soil so badly that it gets to situations where it makes it tough to actually have trees or any kind of plants that survive. Mulching is a huge, huge deal, and it's relatively inexpensive in terms of what we do in terms of tree business and tree work.

Doug: Talk to me a little bit about that education. If you've got kind of a cultural thing out there where they're not mulching, and you come in and say, "Hey, you could save yourself a lot of trouble by throwing this mulch down there," is that a hard sell or do people go for it?

Joe: Sometimes a lot of people out here have landscapers and things, and the common complaint is that the landscapers always blow off all the mulch whenever they're using blowers. There's some truth to that. A lot of people tend to like the more aesthetic mulch; really fine, particle-size mulch. We also have a lot of redwood bark mulch out here. Those are very poor choices in terms of tree health and in terms of soil health.

If they mulch their gardens with a type of mulch that's got various particle sizes, large, small, medium, they tend to be heavier type mulches. They tend to last a lot longer. They may not be as aesthetically pleasing as the other mulches, but they will last longer and they will help the trees more. I go over this constantly with property owners. It's like a doctor telling you what to do for your health. It's always a gray area, and I hope that they do some things, but that's the one thing that I hope that they do do. Some people do, some people don't, but it's definitely something that I'm always talking about with clients. [chuckles]

Doug: It sounds absolutely maddening to me because [laughs] everybody in our little world knows the benefits of mulch, but again, you come up against these cultural things in different areas. I want to bring up another thing about mulch. Do you have the same problem out there that we do here with volcano mulch becoming a problem?

Joe: It's so funny. I grew up in St. Louis area and learned of those things. Luckily, we really don't have that problem out here. I don't know why. Whenever I go back and visit my parents, I see those things, I'm just going, "Goodness gracious." It's amazing. We generally have pretty good landscaping design beds that we can spread that mulch to a wider area. We don't really have as much land around these houses out here because there are a lot smaller lots than back in the Midwest. Our landscape, luckily we are free of those for the most part. [laughs] At least good for us, but yes, definitely still a challenge over in the East Coast and Midwest.

Doug: Your battle is just to get the people to use mulch. Our battle is to keep the mulch off the trees for God's sake.

Joe: Yes, yes, yes. Root crowns are very important to have on the surface, and free of any debris or anything that's going to cause moisture.

Doug: Let's talk a little bit about the use of fertilizers from an eco-friendly standpoint. From a gardening standpoint, I'm always telling people, "Read the bag and don't overdo it because the plant can only take so much. We don't want that fertilizer running away during a hard rain."

Joe: Yes. Again, I always like comparing this to people because people tend to really get that connection. If you take double of a drug that you're supposed to take, that you're prescribed, it's not necessarily going to be that effective and actually may be harmful. With fertilization, it's really, really important to follow the rules. With that, fertilization has a lot of salt typically in it, especially granular fertilizer. Going overboard on that can actually cause burn to plants and cause drought-like situations to happen to plants, even if they're getting plenty of water.

Following all those instructions is important. Urban lots generally are deficient of nitrogen and a lot of these good nutrients that we tend to see in forests. Doing supplemental forest fertilization is definitely important. Having fertilization and fertilizers that are generally more slow release. I know Davey Tree's got a great fertilizer that we use, but slow-release fertilizers are really good because they actually slowly give the plant what they need.

Once the soil has so much nitrogen, what'll happen is actually the nitrogen will just leach through the ground, and the plants won't even be able to get it because it'll just pass right through the root system. Right amounts and slow release are two very important things.

Doug: I think fertilization is one of the things that homeowners don't think a lot about when it comes to their trees, but it is an important part of your standard tree care, right?

Joe: Yes. You think about a natural forest, they've got plenty of fertilizer. A lot of my clients that have natural-type situations when we're seeing a lot of leaf litter composition, I really don't recommend fertilizing in those areas because we've got a good natural process going. Especially challenging out here is we've got such a long growing season in California, a lot of trees are looking good, they're green, and so a homeowner goes, "Why would I need to fertilize? I don't want a fertilizer because it's going to cause my trees to grow faster, and I don't want that to happen."

Most people that call us that have tree problems, their trees are already in a state that are so far in decline or past the point that we can't help them, whether it's with the fungicide or with fertilization. The best method is really just to be proactive, and being on a regular schedule with having your trees inspected by an arborist and having any kind of treatments done before they get to a certain state where it's really hard, if not impossible, for us to help or save them.

Doug: Well, before we get into dealing with insects and stuff like that, I want to talk a little bit about your background. First off, you must really miss the snow from St. Louis living out in dreary California, right?

Joe: Yes. [chuckles] I love the snow, it's great, but yes, definitely living it as a challenge. [laughs] Especially St Louis, it's freezing rain, and that's even worse than snow, so I'm very happy out here.

Doug: Talk to me a little bit about how you got into this.

Joe: I went to University of Missouri and majored in forestry. Was really into more or less doing stand research and really wanted to live in a mountain-type setting with taking care of stands of trees for the Forest Service. Did that for several years doing seasonal work, and found myself out in the Sierras and traveled around those mountains a lot and fell in love with them. After doing several seasons of that and just tired of living out of my truck and moving from place to place, I was looking for more of a permanent situation. Even though I took some urban forestry classes in college, I really didn't know the opportunity that was out there with urban forestry.

I got hooked up with Davey and applied for a job, and they flew me out to California and said, "Hey, listen. This is what you can do." I've been with Davey ever since. Unlike a lot of people that have changed careers and changed jobs, I've been working for Davey for about 15 years, really most of my professional career, doing tree care. That's how you find yourself out here. [chuckles] I found myself out here.

Doug: Before we got going, you told me an interesting story. Now, we've talked a lot about native trees and how important they are, but you had a client that brought trees from all over the country back to California, right?

Joe: Yes. We take care of a really nice property in our area that former NFL coach broadcaster-- As he traveled the country, he was just really interested in the native trees from wherever he traveled to, so wherever he went he brought back a tree from there. His landscape was absolutely amazing, and just in it had all these just different trees that-- a lot of them pretty unique. We do have a lot of trees from the East Coast and Midwest that are here and that are planted commonly. Amazingly enough just with our environment, despite the drought and despite all the challenges that we have there, a lot of them have done actually fairly well. [laughs]

Doug: That's funny. How did that happen? Is that just because we've got our Davey tree experts making sure there's water on them and they're trimmed right or what--

Joe: I would love to say that, and I'm sure that's definitely part of that for sure. I think very important to do your due diligence and treating the trees right, and we definitely know how to do that fairly well. A lot of it's our climate's very conducive to a variety of trees for sure, but having Davey Tree out there does not hurt, that's for sure.

Doug: One more quick question about those trees. In your mind, what was one of the most interesting ones that came back that actually did well?

Joe: Again, some of the trees, I didn't interact with them much. Some of the trees he brought back were actually even from overseas. He had some weird pines from China that were just out of this world, or at least out of this continent for sure, that I don't even know the name of them. I knew most of the common ones. Some of the rare ones I did have some knowledge on, but gosh, you'd have to have some botanical knowledge of some of these trees and where he got them from. The way that he did his landscape, it was pretty unique, and he had them placed in a way that really highlighted each one. Unfortunately, unlike a botanical garden, he did not have them actually named. [chuckles]

Doug: That's really cool. Interesting stuff. Let's continue on talking a little bit about eco-friendly landscapes. We're dealing with pests and diseases. Talk a little bit about that. About being careful about what's applied and how it's applied, and just using the right product for the right problem.

Joe: Regardless of where you're at, Midwest, East Coast, we all have our issues with fungal diseases, bacterial diseases, insects. We all have our problems. There are a lot of effective treatments out there. Arboriculture has gotten a long way in terms of learning how to do these things and learning how to get better at doing these treatments. A big thing for California especially is when people hear the term pesticide or they hear the term fungicide, they really get a little hesitant.

Doing those treatments are important for the health of trees. We all have to realize that all the trees that pretty much in our urban landscape, it's pretty much a fake landscape. Definitely, there are native trees that are there that are hundreds of years old that are here or there, but most trees that we take care of are planted. A lot of them are not from the area, and we have to do a lot of different things management-wise to keep those trees healthy. Applying pesticides and fungicides is something that could benefit the trees. We can do it in a way that is minimal if not poor effect to the environment.

There's been a lot of advancements in tree injections. We tend to like doing a lot of tree injections for diseases rather than spraying because that, again, is a lot more effective. It gets into the trees systematically and then also minimizes any impact to the environment with any kind of overspray or indirect issues. There's a lot we can do. There's a lot we don't know but there's a lot we can do. I think the industry is moving very, very well in terms of being able to treat a lot of diseases that we didn't have answers for years back.

Doug: When you're dealing with these long periods of drought and you obviously still have to plant trees, tell me a little bit about the native trees out there that, in general, you're adding to the landscape. Now, we always know right tree right place, but tell me a couple of varieties that you guys are planting that I might not know about out here in the East.

Joe: A lot of drought-tolerant trees. You guys have plenty of oak trees out there, but I tell people all the time, you look at the brown hills in the summertime that are above your houses and you see grass and you see oak trees. In my area specifically, we're kind of an oak savannah to the East, and to the West we've got a combination of redwood and oaky bay tree-type natural forest. Love planting valley oaks. Valley oak is a type of white oak, very drought-tolerant. Coast live oak, which is very similar to the Southern live oaks that you see on the East Coast. Those are great native trees.

We do a lot of crape myrtle planting. Those are definitely drought-tolerant ornamental trees. It's funny to say that too, but I've talked to some really well-respected arborists, and they're telling me that with all these droughts we probably will not have pine trees here in the Bay Area in the next 20 or 30 years. That's how that changes because all the pine trees are getting attacked by bark beetles. We're getting just a shift in terms of tree species. I'm not even treating any pine trees anymore for bark beetles really, because it's almost like it's just almost a waste of money at this point.

Doug: Is it because the trees are so weakened from all this drought?

Joe: Exactly.

Dough: Is that one of the reasons, or are there other factors too?

Joe: Lack of water. Pine trees need water to create pitch sap. Sap is used as a protection method when beetles are boring into the tree. We all have seen-- at least most of us have seen Jurassic Park with the little mosquito in the amber. That's really the idea of what pine trees do to protect themselves. If they're in drought stress, they cannot produce enough pitch and cannot produce enough sap to protect themselves. The beetles just have a heyday and just bore through everything and all the vascular tissue that's there, and then they're a goner because they can't get water to the top of the trees.

Doug: Joe, that's heartbreaking. Coming from a tree person's standpoint, that just sounds so depressing to think of that in the future of your pine trees. They're part of people's lives and landscapes.

Joe: Well, this is interesting because this is a lesson that should be learned, I guess. I guess this would be good for people that are thinking about planting trees going forward. The predominant species of pine tree that we have is called Monterey Pine. These pines are actually one of the rarest pines in the world. They grow in a very small area near Monterey on the California coast. Countries like New Zealand, they grow these things like weeds and they use them for lumber. They're really good lumber in other countries. The Bay Area in California in general decided to plant a bunch of these trees back in the 50s and 60s. The Boy Scouts used to hand them out, plant a tree, be green.

Those trees were never adapted to the climate environment that we have out here in the East Bay and in a lot of parts of California. They need a lot of fog and they need a lot of moisture, and when you don't have that, that cycle of the bark beetles happens. We've made the mistake to plant these trees. Although redwoods are definitely stressed out right now too, they don't have bark beetle issues. If I had clients 40, 50 years ago that planted redwoods instead of Monterey pines, we would be treating those redwoods and watering those redwoods and they would be sticking around rather than dying like these pine trees would be. It's really a choice of the proper species, and we're just reaping, unfortunately, the cost of removing all of them and losing the urban canopy with what we did back then.

Doug: All right. We need to end on some kind of bright note here.

Joe: [laughs]

Doug: You're bringing me down, Joe. [laughs]

Joe: Okay. Well, you know what? As a tree guy, those pine trees, I'm glad to see them gone because we can get some better trees in there to actually improve the urban forest. It's actually a good thing in disguise, I would say. [laughs]

Doug: Is there anything that you've found during this long period of drought that is just as tough as nails and is thriving under these conditions?

Joe: Well, oak trees, even though they're drought [unintelligible 00:23:20], they're getting stressed out too. It's really a grim picture in terms of what we're looking at our natural forests, our urban forests, but the really good thing is that there are a lot of smart people that are doing a lot of good work and finding species that actually work. The International Society of Arboriculture, the Western chapter, they've written several, several articles in the last couple years in terms of elm species, in terms of maple species. All these different species that are subspecies of trees that we normally plant.

They've done studies that these trees do much better under drought conditions and under less water conditions. We are making that change. It's going to take some time. We're going to see some shock of terms of loss, but we do have smart people that are giving us the tools and giving us the options to plant trees and have trees here that are going to be much better to deal with the challenging climate.

Doug: All right, Joe. You turned it around a little bit there. I'm a little bit more hopeful for you guys out there in the West.

Joe: Yes.

Doug: I want to thank you very much for your time talking about eco-friendly landscape. I really learned a lot. It was great stuff. Gosh, I hope that you get a couple summers here with some decent rain.

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Joe: No doubt, Doug. Well, much appreciated. Thanks for having me on.

Doug: All right. Thanks so much.

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Doug: Next week in celebration of International Women's Day, we'll talk to a team of women climbers from the Denver area and find out how they found their way into arboriculture. Tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster, and I'd love it if you'd subscribe to the podcast. We are having fun. As always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

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