Howard70
Treehouser
Folks:
I'm looking for advice about caring for three trees at our house in the north central Rio Grande valley of New Mexico. While I'm a biologist, I usually work with reptiles and amphibians and know almost nothing about plants!
These three sycamores define our deck & yard area on the south side of our house and provide great shade and nesting sites for hummingbirds during the spring and summer while the patterned trunks provide soothing views from many rooms all year. They were a major attraction to us when we bought the house 17 years ago and remain one of the reasons we're happy living in rural New Mexico. Our house was built in 1984 and I suspect the trees were planted soon thereafter so I estimate they are around 30 - 35 years old. Their combined canopy is about 70' north-south and about 60' east-west. They appear to me to be about 60 - 70' tall.
Google Earth view of our house and the sycamores nestled in the interior corner. Other trees around are mostly cottonwoods, a few piñons, a couple of elms and some fruit trees.
Wide angle view of the three sycamores, deck and backyard. The lengths of closer branches are distorted by the wide angle lens.
While the trunks and major (scaffold?) branches appear healthy and resist our spring winds better than any other of our trees, distal lateral branches seem to die back most years and spring foliage grows along the main branches from trunk to near tip. We've noticed that new leaf buds often green up, sending out shoots early and then there is usually a freeze, hail storm, high winds or combination of these that causes many of the new leaves to die. Subsequent sprouts seem stunted and the leaves small except for those along the major branches closer to the trunk which come out larger and appear more luxuriant.
Dead secondary branches from last year in the canopy:
Foliage (water sprouts?) along major branches close to the trunk:
Questions:
1. Are the dead lateral branches avoidable? Would removing the water sprouts (not sure this is correct term) along the scaffold branches early in the season promote more growth and survival of laterals? We often waited until later in the summer to remove the foliage on the scaffold branches simply because we often travel in the spring and early summer. Could the trees be stressed for water? Our area honestly only gets about 7 - 10" of rain annually and most of that in three or four downpours. I think these trees get most of their water from our watering the lawn which extends around 5/8 of the ground surrounding the trees. When it rains the area covered by the deck (the other 3/8ths) gets water through the deck, but otherwise its dry.
2. We wish to remove the water sprouts annually, but sometimes fail. We like looking out across the clean multihued trunks and branches so their removal is aesthetic, but with few lateral branches I recently became worried we might harm the trees by removing that foliage? In general we try to leave the distal third of the foliage on the scaffold branches - is that enough?
3. Any suggestions about when we ought to do pruning? From some recent reading, it seems that earlier might be better to encourage lateral growth (as mentioned above)?
4. We make no effort to augment the soil or add fertilizer to the trees. Should we?
Thanks for any suggestions!
Howard
I'm looking for advice about caring for three trees at our house in the north central Rio Grande valley of New Mexico. While I'm a biologist, I usually work with reptiles and amphibians and know almost nothing about plants!
These three sycamores define our deck & yard area on the south side of our house and provide great shade and nesting sites for hummingbirds during the spring and summer while the patterned trunks provide soothing views from many rooms all year. They were a major attraction to us when we bought the house 17 years ago and remain one of the reasons we're happy living in rural New Mexico. Our house was built in 1984 and I suspect the trees were planted soon thereafter so I estimate they are around 30 - 35 years old. Their combined canopy is about 70' north-south and about 60' east-west. They appear to me to be about 60 - 70' tall.
Google Earth view of our house and the sycamores nestled in the interior corner. Other trees around are mostly cottonwoods, a few piñons, a couple of elms and some fruit trees.
Wide angle view of the three sycamores, deck and backyard. The lengths of closer branches are distorted by the wide angle lens.
While the trunks and major (scaffold?) branches appear healthy and resist our spring winds better than any other of our trees, distal lateral branches seem to die back most years and spring foliage grows along the main branches from trunk to near tip. We've noticed that new leaf buds often green up, sending out shoots early and then there is usually a freeze, hail storm, high winds or combination of these that causes many of the new leaves to die. Subsequent sprouts seem stunted and the leaves small except for those along the major branches closer to the trunk which come out larger and appear more luxuriant.
Dead secondary branches from last year in the canopy:
Foliage (water sprouts?) along major branches close to the trunk:
Questions:
1. Are the dead lateral branches avoidable? Would removing the water sprouts (not sure this is correct term) along the scaffold branches early in the season promote more growth and survival of laterals? We often waited until later in the summer to remove the foliage on the scaffold branches simply because we often travel in the spring and early summer. Could the trees be stressed for water? Our area honestly only gets about 7 - 10" of rain annually and most of that in three or four downpours. I think these trees get most of their water from our watering the lawn which extends around 5/8 of the ground surrounding the trees. When it rains the area covered by the deck (the other 3/8ths) gets water through the deck, but otherwise its dry.
2. We wish to remove the water sprouts annually, but sometimes fail. We like looking out across the clean multihued trunks and branches so their removal is aesthetic, but with few lateral branches I recently became worried we might harm the trees by removing that foliage? In general we try to leave the distal third of the foliage on the scaffold branches - is that enough?
3. Any suggestions about when we ought to do pruning? From some recent reading, it seems that earlier might be better to encourage lateral growth (as mentioned above)?
4. We make no effort to augment the soil or add fertilizer to the trees. Should we?
Thanks for any suggestions!
Howard
