I recently quoted for a client 20ft poles for some tristanias to stake to. Would give top of tree protection in wind events from breaking. They had sticker shock and want to see some other ideas anybody have any thoughts ideas of how else to secure the tops 4-5ft of the trees so they don’t break during high winds?

After paying for license fees, bond fees, insurance, etc (assuming I get approved), I'm already having to pay close to $2,000 to get started, so I really can't afford several hundred dollars to access an app/website to prepare for the exam. Thanks for any help.

This pear tree has blight and I'm partial to just rip it all the way out and start over with something else.

I would love to plant an apricot there. Would that be ok?

If not, I could plant fig, plum, or pomegranate. But I definitely prefer apricot because I have apricot nearby already.

The omniscient internet says wait to prune peach until early spring after late frost before leaves appear.

Here's my peach, and the picture is nearly garbage but the first leaves are already appearing but there's 2 months until the last frost!

What do I do?

Hi everyone! I’ve had this fig tree for about 3-4 years. Last summer it grew a few small fruits. I’m a renter so I move it around with me and it’s always been an indoor tree. It loses its leaves every winter and then grows new shoots shortly after. This year it’s doing both at the same time, still shedding last year’s leaves while growing new ones. The part at the top is new in the past month. I would like to keep it small and healthy, so I’m wondering how best to prune it so that it is shorter and fuller, but I’m worried that if I lob off the new growth at the top, I’m going to hurt it. I’m also wondering when a good time of year to repot it would be. Please help me take care of my tree!

Hello. I want to try growing a climbing plant up a tree in my garden. The tree is a mature sycamore with a trunk approximately half a metre wide. I plant to build a planter to sit at the bottom of the tree for the climber to grow out of. One option is to build a standard four sided planter, but it would be slightly easier to build one with three sides so the tree trunk forms the fourth side. But this would mean that once filled with soil/compost the soil will press up against the base of the tree trunk for about half a metre on one side. Will this damage the tree? Thanks in advance!

I love Russian olives. They do very well in riparian zones in Colorado where I live and provide great wildlife habitat. Unfortunately with them being invasive, it is illegal to plant them. Does anyone know any good alternatives? It looks like the American silverberry is close, but doesn't get as tall. Anyone know of any other alternatives that have the same qualities as the Russian olives?

A client called asking me to do something to get rid of these spots/ dust on his trees and hedges. Does anyone know what it is and what to use in order to get rid of it?

I recently had a broken limb on a silver maple in my yard taken down. Part of the limb was hollow and had a large carpenter ant colony.

As I was splitting what I thought was unaffected wood to burn, I discovered what appears to be earthworms living in veins of rot running through parts of the limb.

Are these, in fact, earthworms? And how did they get into a cavity that was between 20 and 30 feet off the ground?

Bought a house this year and previous owners were spraying copper or sulfur on their apple tree in spring (they said it was a honeycrisp) to prevent brown spots. Unsure what is causing the brown spots but seemed to be a sort of borrowing worm that likes to dig to the core. We had many such spots on the apples this year despite whatever efforts may have been made by the previous owners (we got the house in early August).

I read recently that having grass growing under apple trees is not a great idea. I am thinking of covering the area under the tree drip line with cardboard, then covering with compost to basically kill the grass (sheet mulch). The in the spring, I'm considering what sort of thing I might plant under the apple tree instead, and chives seemed like a good possibility as they are said to deter apple scab. It seems like from my reading that some other herbs might be beneficial as well.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Is there anything I might not be considering?

I’m looking for recommendations for headsets to go on helmets or included to helmets, instead of yelling from the tree top.