Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

The summer heat and drought of 2011 killed too many trees to count. And fall is the time to start replacing them.

10— Getting the trees in the ground in the fall, they have the entire dormant season o spread roots out before the bog demands on roots and water starts in the spring.

Scott Harris is an arborist with Tree Folks of Austin.

14— you always want to plant your trees at the exact same level that they were in the pot. So, the grade with the surrounding ground is going to be the same as they were in the pot. Don’t fig a big deep hole, dig a big wide hole.

Use the soil you removed as back fill, and do not add compost to the hole—just put it around the tree instead.

22— Put your compost underneath the mulch, which you should have three or four inches of. And then all of that organic goodness will kind of dribble down, in the way nature intended. Sort of like the forest floor: you have less broken down things on the top, and more the deeper down you go.

Soil moisture is especially important during the first three years after installing your tree. Provide one inch of water each week for the first season. But if 2012 gives us another dry scorcher of a summer, you will have to water more often.

Find information on wildscaping and a Texas native plant database on the TPW website.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.