Put On Your Sunscreen...And Don't Forget The Trees
Where has the summer gone? I was shocked last week to hear of many kids already back in session at school. What is up with that?No one should be in a classroom until at least after August. Well, we are in the "dog days" of summer. August is the warmest month of the year in San Diego, and that SoCal sun can be pretty intense.
When my children were small their mother would frequently admonish them to put on their sunscreen. Considering the gene pool of English, Irish, Scottish, Swedish, and Norwegian that my kids are composed of, that was sound advice. The glowing white mayonnaise complexion of our bunch would be "boiled lobster red" in short order without protection from the sun. This point really hits home as we lost my father-in-law to melanoma last year. He always owned convertibles and rode with the top down for decades, long before sun screen was even invented. Riding with the top down and burning the top of his head for years did him in.
In recent years, we have learned that the sun is necessary to life, but can also cause damage. Our skin can be damaged a great deal by the sun, but are you aware the sun can also badly damage your trees? Leaves, twigs, branches, and trunks can be scalded and left with permanent damage. The potential for harm is exacerbated when we do things imprudently to our trees that subjects them to the sun's damaging rays.
This is the season for summer pruning deciduous fruit trees. This is a practice that has become very popular, that assists in keeping trees smaller and more manageable in tiny urban gardens. I am a proponent of this new technique, but BEWARE!
Pruning back a dense head of foliage and exposing twigs, branches, and bark to intense direct sun can scald them. It's a little like this. I have been a bearded man since 1978. I tell all the hipsters I see with beards these days, I was hip before it was hip. So this face of mine has seen precious little sun, but a few times through the years, I shaved and toyed with the idea of being clean shaven. Naw....grow back the beard, is what I always tell myself. At those times of brief dermatological exposure, it was odd to see how pasty white and virginal my skin looked under that forest of barbarism. My newly exposed skin burned with the first rays from old Sol.
The same thing happens when you trim your trees. The foliage has shaded the structure of the tree, and a sudden removal the the leafy canopy exposes that tender bark that has been sheltered prior to now to the burning UV rays. What happens when your skin gets too much sun? You hurt, your skin blisters and cracks., your skin peels.
Similar damage happens to your trees. The tender bark can split. The bark can peel. Cambium layers can be so damaged that it opens gaping wounds on the branches and trunk. Those open wounds can cause oozing, can allow rot to enter the heartwood of the tree, and can allow insects access to tissues of the tree that normally remain sealed and thereby protected.
When you are in danger of sun exposure, what do you do? You put on sunscreen. You can apply sunscreen to your trees as well. Put away the Coppertone, not that kind of sunscreen, but sunscreen nonetheless. You can and should apply something to your precious trees to protect them from the sun. There are special paints designed for this very purpose. Our local paint manufacturer, Frazee, makes a very fine orchard whitewash specifically for that purpose. Paint the bare and exposed surfaces where sun will penetrate the canopy of foliage. You have probably seen trees with their trunks and branches painted in this fashion and wondered...what in the world? I must confess, seeing brilliant white trunks offends my sense of aesthetic. I think it looks hideous! What to do?
Whitewashed trees aren't your thing? I understand. Many of us these days are integrating edibles into our landscapes, and snowy white tree trunks might not be your thing any more than it is mine. Here is a solution. Use an interior latex paint thinned by half with water. You can use a light color in a taupe or beige tone that won't be so glaring. Garden writer and horticultural maven Nan Sterman mentioned that she saw a garden of trees painted in a series of pastels. I can handle that. Sounds a little Maurice de Vlaminck to me. I could start a Fauvist themed garden.
There is another way. Don't prune the daylights out of your trees! You shouldn't even really be pruning your citrus. I cringe when folks have me over to proudly display their handiwork on the skirting up and opening the canopy of their citrus trees. I am always polite, but I am not happy when I see this done to those poor little citrus trees,
Soon the summer of 2016 will be but a memory. Fall and winter are on the way. Fall and winter sun scald damage is a real problem too. Once those leaves drop, the woody structures are exposed to all that bright sun. Anyone that has experienced snow blindness can attest to the intensity of even winter sun and the potential for sunburn in winter, Sun damage can harm your trees in fall and winter as well.
Enjoy all those daylight hours, but beware the damaging rays of the sun.
Before you go out in that hot sun, put on your sunscreen!
When my children were small their mother would frequently admonish them to put on their sunscreen. Considering the gene pool of English, Irish, Scottish, Swedish, and Norwegian that my kids are composed of, that was sound advice. The glowing white mayonnaise complexion of our bunch would be "boiled lobster red" in short order without protection from the sun. This point really hits home as we lost my father-in-law to melanoma last year. He always owned convertibles and rode with the top down for decades, long before sun screen was even invented. Riding with the top down and burning the top of his head for years did him in.
In recent years, we have learned that the sun is necessary to life, but can also cause damage. Our skin can be damaged a great deal by the sun, but are you aware the sun can also badly damage your trees? Leaves, twigs, branches, and trunks can be scalded and left with permanent damage. The potential for harm is exacerbated when we do things imprudently to our trees that subjects them to the sun's damaging rays.
This is the season for summer pruning deciduous fruit trees. This is a practice that has become very popular, that assists in keeping trees smaller and more manageable in tiny urban gardens. I am a proponent of this new technique, but BEWARE!
Pruning back a dense head of foliage and exposing twigs, branches, and bark to intense direct sun can scald them. It's a little like this. I have been a bearded man since 1978. I tell all the hipsters I see with beards these days, I was hip before it was hip. So this face of mine has seen precious little sun, but a few times through the years, I shaved and toyed with the idea of being clean shaven. Naw....grow back the beard, is what I always tell myself. At those times of brief dermatological exposure, it was odd to see how pasty white and virginal my skin looked under that forest of barbarism. My newly exposed skin burned with the first rays from old Sol.
The same thing happens when you trim your trees. The foliage has shaded the structure of the tree, and a sudden removal the the leafy canopy exposes that tender bark that has been sheltered prior to now to the burning UV rays. What happens when your skin gets too much sun? You hurt, your skin blisters and cracks., your skin peels.
Similar damage happens to your trees. The tender bark can split. The bark can peel. Cambium layers can be so damaged that it opens gaping wounds on the branches and trunk. Those open wounds can cause oozing, can allow rot to enter the heartwood of the tree, and can allow insects access to tissues of the tree that normally remain sealed and thereby protected.
When you are in danger of sun exposure, what do you do? You put on sunscreen. You can apply sunscreen to your trees as well. Put away the Coppertone, not that kind of sunscreen, but sunscreen nonetheless. You can and should apply something to your precious trees to protect them from the sun. There are special paints designed for this very purpose. Our local paint manufacturer, Frazee, makes a very fine orchard whitewash specifically for that purpose. Paint the bare and exposed surfaces where sun will penetrate the canopy of foliage. You have probably seen trees with their trunks and branches painted in this fashion and wondered...what in the world? I must confess, seeing brilliant white trunks offends my sense of aesthetic. I think it looks hideous! What to do?
Whitewashed trees aren't your thing? I understand. Many of us these days are integrating edibles into our landscapes, and snowy white tree trunks might not be your thing any more than it is mine. Here is a solution. Use an interior latex paint thinned by half with water. You can use a light color in a taupe or beige tone that won't be so glaring. Garden writer and horticultural maven Nan Sterman mentioned that she saw a garden of trees painted in a series of pastels. I can handle that. Sounds a little Maurice de Vlaminck to me. I could start a Fauvist themed garden.
There is another way. Don't prune the daylights out of your trees! You shouldn't even really be pruning your citrus. I cringe when folks have me over to proudly display their handiwork on the skirting up and opening the canopy of their citrus trees. I am always polite, but I am not happy when I see this done to those poor little citrus trees,
Soon the summer of 2016 will be but a memory. Fall and winter are on the way. Fall and winter sun scald damage is a real problem too. Once those leaves drop, the woody structures are exposed to all that bright sun. Anyone that has experienced snow blindness can attest to the intensity of even winter sun and the potential for sunburn in winter, Sun damage can harm your trees in fall and winter as well.
Enjoy all those daylight hours, but beware the damaging rays of the sun.
Before you go out in that hot sun, put on your sunscreen!
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