THE CASEBOOK OF DR. D. R. SLATER No. 822: Barriers to Success
by Duncan Slater PhD • 1st Arboriculturist, Lecturer, Researcher, Arbor Day UK Co-ordinator & Discoverer of Natural Bracing in Trees
When one considers the many barriers to the survival of planted trees, it’s somewhat surprising that any trees make it through the establishment phase. From my own photo library, I have picked out nine common ‘barriers’:
A: A tree strangled by its own tree tie
B: Vandalism – this tree has been snapped
C: Development of girdling roots
D: Strimmer damage to a tree’s base
E: Development of included bark in the tree’s main structure
F: Squirrel (and other mammal) damage to the tree
G: Planted too deeply into the soil
H: Drought damage to establishing trees
I: Pests and Diseases
This is not an exclusive list – there are plenty of other existential threats for our trees. You’d think pests and diseases would be at the top of the list, but, apart from a few disease-plagued species, that’s not my experience – most establishing trees die from artificial means or develop structural faults.
It’s difficult to rank these factors in order of importance: perhaps in some areas, planting trees too deeply is the most common cause of tree death – in others, drought damage or vandalism may be the worst problem. Fellow arborists are welcome to comment on what they see the most of, causing losses to young trees in their area.
There are two commonalities for most of these instances of tree failures: i) A lack of care in the planting of the trees; ii) A lack of ongoing care as the tree establishes.
LESSON LEARNT: For newly planted urban trees, it is rarely the case that one can just leave ‘Nature’ to it. To overcome the many barriers to a tree’s successful establishment, in my experience, there needs to be someone who cares, who visits these young trees on a regular basis and resolves problems early, as well as they can. Unfortunately, all the media is obsessed with tree planting numbers, and those ‘tree heroes’ that do the actual work to coax planted trees through their establishment phase rarely get a mention. Our Arbor Days celebrate those that work with trees – not just planting events – to try to redress this major imbalance.
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