How to Ensure Your Trees Are Well-Nourished
Healthy trees look great and provide beneficial shade that can help keep your home and outdoor spaces relatively cool on hot summer days. Neglected trees, though, create dangers to your property and the people and pets who use it. They could drop heavy branches or topple over and damage your property or one or more people, pets, or other animals.
Fortunately, you can do two simple things to give your trees their best chance for a long and healthy life. One is to ensure they get a suitable amount of water, and the other is to nourish them with fertilizer. A simple irrigation system, such as a garden hose and sprinkler, can take care of the watering. Here’s how to handle the fertilization.
Learn How Root Systems Work
All trees have roots that seek out water and nourishment while anchoring them to the ground. As trees grow taller and wider, their roots spread out and grow deeper, which expands the root zone for their respective trees. The root zone expands farther than the drip line for a tree. The drip line is the outermost area where water drips to the ground from a tree’s leaf system during and after rainstorms and during cool mornings that produce a lot of dew. The more roots expand beyond the drip line, the less water and nutrients they are likely to encounter.
Increase the Fertilization Area
You can make up for drip line limitations by expanding the area where you apply fertilizer to nourish a tree. You should apply fertilizer near the base of the tree but expand the fertilized area as the root system expands over time. The wider the area of fertilization, the more likely the growing root system will continue to take in nutrients that keep the tree healthy and safe.
Fertilize the Drip Line
The drip line also is important for fertilization because the natural watering process typically results in feeder roots concentrating along that line. Young trees in particular rely on feeder roots to enable relatively rapid growth and compete for sunshine and nourishment with larger trees. Adding fertilizer along the drip line ensures the feeder roots obtain enough nutrients to support continued good health and growth for the tree.
Use Liquid Fertilizer for Deep Roots
Trees also have deep roots that you should nourish with fertilizer. You can do that by using liquid fertilizer that you can inject directly into the soil. The liquid fertilizer should go into the ground about a foot beneath the surface to make it easier for deep roots to draw in its nutrients. Injecting liquid fertilizer is especially helpful for trees that are located in or near compacted soil and paved locations that otherwise repel water and nutrients.
Spray Fertilizer on Leaves
You also can apply fertilizer by mixing liquid fertilizer with water and spraying the mixture onto tree leaves. The leaves can soak in the fertilized water and nourish the trees from above. Meanwhile, the ground fertilization nourishes the roots and tree, which gives it the best chance at a long and healthy life. If the tree is a fruit tree, it also could produce more flowers and more fruit.
Test the Soil
Fertilization is a key element of tree health, but like most things, it’s possible to do too much. If you add too much fertilizer, it might harm rather than help the tree. You should check the soil by purchasing an affordable home test kit from your local garden center.
There are many types available, including some that have a probe you can insert into the ground to test the soil. Others might require you to obtain soil samples, mix them into a solution, and use test strips to check for nutrient levels and potentially harmful substances. The test results will let you know if you need to add more, less, or maintain your current level of fertilization.