Trees can tolerate a span of scorching heat, but they’ll need your help as well as the help of trained arborists to recover. Signs that your trees are suffering from intense heat include:

• Wilting, yellowing leaves
• Leaves curling up and dropping off the tree
• A deficient canopy
• Fruit dropping before it’s ripe
• Leaves taking on their fall colors prematurely
• Leaves that are small or misshapen

Here are ways you can help.

Plant the Right Tree for Your Climate

It’s important to plant the right tree for your climate. Check your area’s USDA hardiness zone, and plant trees that are known to thrive in that zone. These trees may have a better chance of surviving a period of unusually high heat and drought.

Water the Trees Deeply

The best way to help trees beat the heat is to water them deeply, especially if the trees are young. This means watering between 12 and 18 inches deep around the tree’s roots. The depth should be as deep as three feet if you’re watering mature trees. Deep watering can also be translated as 15 gallons per tree per week. Unless you don’t mind slowly emptying a few buckets of water around your trees, the best way to do this is through a soaker hose. This is a perforated hose that allows water to drip into the soil over a few hours. You can also lay your garden hose around your tree, and let it flow slowly until the water soaks into the soil. You won’t need to water again until you see that the soil is dry down to 12 inches around the tree’s roots. Ask your arborist about this if you need help.

Mulch Around the Tree

Another way to help your trees during a heat spell is to mulch around them. Add a two to three-inch layer of mulch from the drip line to just before the crown. The drip line is the edge of the canopy, and the crown is where the root meets the trunk. Don’t let the mulch touch the crown, however. Mulch helps the soil around the tree hold on to moisture.

Mulch can be anything from wood chips to pine needles to bits of rubber, shredded leaves, exhausted coffee grinds, gravel or even decorative glass beads. The advantage of organic mulch is that it can decompose and feed the tree.

Call Us to Help You Care for Your Summer Trees

Heat stresses trees in the same way it stresses every other living thing. Trees depend on you to help them bear up during the high temperatures. They also depend on professional arborists. If you need arborist services in Santa Rosa, CA, call us at TreePro Professional Tree Care.