Managing Trees and Shrubs in Your Habitat by Stephen McCarthy

I Managing Trees and Shrubs in Your Habitat For more nature habitat information Visit these helpful websites: A Plant's Home A Bird's Home A Homesteader's Home

nevitably, the trees and shrubs that you planted will grow, expanding their canopies and coverage. They will also reproduce through seeds or root propagation, becoming more crowded and competing for sunlight, moisture, and nutrients. Consumers such as insects and fungi – including some disease organisms – will take advantage of the food sources provided by the plants. Food chains will develop as the ecosystem becomes established. Deer browsing could control or diminish plants in the understory. Newcomers that were not included in your original habitat plant may take root. How Do You Manage Your Wildlife Habitat Over Time. First, give your trees a healthy start. Plant them properly by digging ample holes and providing plenty of loose soil. Do not fertilize at planting time. Be sure to prune dead and dying branches and roots as you plant.

You have selected appropriate plants for your wildlife habitat and arranged them with sufficient space and light in your habitat plan... How do you manage your habitat over time.

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Control weeds around seedlings. Because weeds grow faster and often taller than young seedlings, they compete for moisture, nutrients, light, and space. Weed control is crucial in the first 3 to 5 years after planting. You will need to prevent weed growth within a 2 to 4 ft. zone around seedlings. Here’s how: s

effective in controlling grasses and broadleaf weeds: (1) pre-emergent, soil-applied chemicals, and (2) post-emergent chemicals applied to foliage of weeds.

Remove all vegetation around the tree site before planting, either by cultivation or using a general herbicide like Roundup in the fall. s

Control weeds after planting. You can kill weeds by mulching around seedlings with sawdust, wood chips, bark, or composted leaves. Be sure to make the mulch layer about 6 in. thick to keep weeds from reappearing.

Apply herbicides, but only when needed, in the proper amount at the right time. Two types of herbicides are

is an appropriate resident. If it is not, remove and destroy it.

Check with your county agricultural extension service for information on recommended chemical weed control around tree plantings.

Waiting until invaders are well established will make more drastic removal methods necessary.

Weed around your trees. Cultivation is probably the least effective method of controlling weeds, as one should avoid digging close to the tree in order not to damage roots.

Control Overly Successful Plants Some of the plants that you introduce into your wildlife habitat may be fast growers and may threaten to take over your plot.

Weeding by this method also must be done 3 to 5 times per season.

Ground covers such as creeping phlox, barren strawberry, and foamflower eventually need to be thinned. Even wild bleeding heart, which has a delightfully long flowering period, can overwhelm us in time.

Remove Invasive Plants If aggressive invaders gain a foothold at your habitat site, they may compete more successfully than your desirable plants. Suckering or clonal trees like sassafras and black locust and wildflowers like white wood aster and hay-scented fern can significantly change the ground layer.

Foamflower

Creeping Phlox

The best way to deal with aggressive invading species is to recognize them early and remove them as they appear. Use lists of your area’s invasive exotics published by your state native plant society to determine whether a newcomer

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“Before long, editing becomes central to the garden’s maintenance, and the best red pen is a fearlessly used compost pile," writes Susan Dumaine in Woodland Gardens . When plants get out of hand, she “stands ready to smother them with mulch-topped strips of old carpet when necessary." Nurture Welcome Volunteers Seed dispersal through wind, water, or animals will also bring desirable newcomers to your habitat. If they are

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encouraged, they can bring welcome changes and a greater variety of native plants to your setting. Plants that you planned to have growing in certain places may also move to new areas, producing unexpected colonies. “You begin to realize that the garden is asserting its independence – the sign of a healthy garden," writes Wayne Womack in Woodland Gardens. Control Animal Damage Animals can significantly alter your habitat and its plantings. With no predators, deer populations are exploding, and humans are squeezing them out of their habitats, as well. Though we might want to attract them to our habitat sites, they can do considerable damage to seedlings and to the understory of a forest, creating a browse line 4 or 5 ft. above the ground.

Bob Lavell, a WindStar Wildlife Habitat Naturalist, has found that “fences" made of several rows of monofilament fishing line attached to plastic poles deter deer. The animals are baffled by this invisible obstacle, which stops or trips them, and they usually avoid the area once they’ve had a run-in with the fence. Species like rabbits and squirrels can also change the species composition of plants on your site by browsing, digging, and burrowing. (Squirrels plant a lot of trees!) When beavers build a dam, the rising water levels around a stream kills nearby forests. Control Insects and Diseases Insects and disease organisms are part of the natural forest ecosystem and actually contribute to biological diversity. But in a small garden, they can wreak havoc and

Control Insects

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threaten the survival of your plants. Well-known problems include oak wilt, gypsy moth caterpillars, spruce bud worm, dogwood anthracnose and hemlock woolly adelgid. Contact your county extension agent to find out how best to treat these problems. Prune You may need to prune for reasons of safety, health, aesthetics, or stimulation of fruit production. All woody plants shed branches in response to shading and competition. These branches, which do not produce enough carbohydrates from photosynthesis, die and are eventually shed. The resulting wounds are sealed by what is called woundwood.

REFERENCES s

Woodland Gardens. Shade Gets Chic. Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, 1995

Henderson, Carrol L. Landscaping for Wildlife. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Nongame Wildlife Program – Section of Wildlife, 1992

USDA, How to Prune Trees, U.S. Forest Service publication NA-FR-01-95

USDA. Homeowner’s Guide for Beautiful, Safe, and Healthy Trees. U.S. Forest Service publication NE-INF58-96

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PRUNING GUIDELINES (1) Prune when branches are broken off by wind, snow, or ice, producing ragged wounds that do not seal. You can increase the strength, longevity, and overall health of the tree by substituting pruning for absent natural healing processes. (2) Prune living branches late in the dormant season or very early in spring before leaves form. This allows maximum wound closure in the growing season after pruning, reduces the chance of transmitting disease, and discourages excessive sap flow from wounds. Chemicals emitted from recent wounds can actually attract insects that spread tree disease. Wounded elm wood attracts bark beetles that harbor spores of the Dutch elm disease fungus; wounds on oaks attract beetles that spread the oak wilt fungus. (3) Prune shrubs regularly. Pruning is also the key to maintaining the long-term health and shapeliness of shrubs. If you remove older stems regularly as the shrubs reach maturity, you will encourage the development of young shoots. This will also allow shrubs to function as small trees, arching over pathways and framing views. (4) To save the current year’s flower crop on flowering trees and shrubs, prune immediately after flowering. (5) If your shrub needs a fresh start, it can be cut back to the ground, either just after flowering or in late winter. The shrub’s stored energy will then be directed into the production of new wood. This article was written by Maryland Master Wildlife Habitat Naturalist Elaine Friebele.

(6) Use sharp tools and make clean cuts. (7) Make proper pruning cuts at a node. A node is the point at which one branch or twig attaches to another. (In the spring of the year, growth begins at buds, and twigs grow until a new node is formed.) For proper pruning technique, request the brochure, USDA, How to Prune Trees, U.S. Forest Service publication NA-FR-01-95. (8) Avoid topping – the practice of cutting large upright branches at right angles between nodes, to reduce the height of the tree. To regulate the tree’s size and shape, start pruning early in the life of the tree. (9) Leave dead trees (snags), fallen trees, and perches. A snag is a bird’s idea of a fast food restaurant – a perching place filled with available food. The bark and soft wood of dead trees, whether standing or fallen, are home to the larvae and adults of many types of insects. Scores of birds and mammals use snags for nesting and perching sites, territory establishment, and a food source. A snag should be at least 6 in. in diameter and 15 ft. tall.

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For more information or for the name of a Master Wildlife Habitat Naturalist in your area, please contact: WindStar Wildlife Institute E-mail: wildlife@windstar.org http://www.windstar.org

WindStar Wildlife Institute is a national, non-profit, conservation organization whose mission is to help individuals and families establish or improve the wildlife habitat on their properties. Photography by Thomas G. Barnes Extension Wildlife Specialist & Associate Professor of Forestry, University of Kentucky

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