WINTER PROPERTY REVIEW - FOUR TREES TO LOOK OUT FOR

Hi everybody. David Anderson, Mayer Tree Service, just doing on a property review. Looking at these western cedars. Usually evergreens are very susceptible to snow load, but if we look at these western cedars opposed to emerald green or standard arborvitaes that have multiple stems, these only have one single top.

So even though they’re vulnerable, they need to be pruned down. Those single tops don’t catch the snow as much and splay as the multiple tops. So our arborvitae are one plant. If you have the multi stem vitae, you just gotta be careful with snow load. Another obvious one in New England is these big old white pines.

You can see this guy here, probably 80 foot tree. Those big, long scaffolding limbs catch snow and ice and break. You can see all those stubs where they’ve caught snow and ice and broken before, so you don’t want those hanging over the house. You can either prune them or if the tree’s too close and worrisome can take it down so it doesn’t break.

As I walk across the yard, another important tree to worry about in New England with snow load is this magnolia

Walking up in from a distance. The problem with the magnolia is they’re very soft wooded and they also have these big, fat furry flower buds, and the combination of being weak wooded. And those flower buds can really cause them to catch snow and break apart. So you really want to keep these pruned and contained.

You can see this has been pruned many times over the years. You can see how strong and muscular the wood is compared to the stems cuz it’s been headed back so many times. So really wanna keep these pruned so they don’t catch snow and break because if we get a heavy wet snow, magnolias are a tree that can really get destroyed.

And another one, this flowering dog wood across the yard. So these flowering dogwood, like the magnolia, have these really heavy bud set and this really heavy bud set with a type of branching. It’s called sympodial branching. But you can see these buds are really thick and fat and heavy. And really do a great job of catching the snow.

They almost look like a hand in the air where the snow lands on them and they can really get snapped apart. So again, like the magnolia, if you keep ’em pruned and contained and don’t allow those scaffolding branches to get too long, they’ll be okay. And again, you can see in the distance here, it’s kind of hard to see through the thicket, but there’s a leaning tree that comes up through the woods.

It’s in a sea of pine, so it’s fairly protected. And if this particular tree falls, it’s not gonna do any damage. It’s in the woods, but obviously a leaning tree is gonna be susceptible to snow and wind as well. And then another major candidate to be worried about in snow is this umbrella, pine, beautiful tree.

Really pretty. Um, it’s not a pine like pine, white pine or Austrian pine. It’s a different genus. Really thick, almost palm like needles. Very pretty. One of the more pretty ornamental trees we grow in New England. Uh, it’s imported from Asia and again, if you keep this tree really PR and contained, it shouldn’t be a problem, but it’s very soft wooded.

These needles catch a lot of snow and they’re generally multi stem and multi stem trees can really pull apart in the snow. So you can see here there’s two, three stems in here. So you can keep those pruned and. They’ll stand up better to the snow load, but just a, a handful of trees to be concerned about if we get a he wet, wet, heavy snowstorm.