Birder’s Lounge

I know…seems obvious, right? As my niece taught me to say, “duh!”

I planted a pecan tree (Carya illinoinensis) in my backyard about 4 years ago. There are many pecan trees near my home and they are so beautiful, even in the winter when they have dropped their leaves. I like to say they have “good bones.” Pecan trees are the state tree of Texas and they are certainly plentiful and do very well. Whatever was on the land my home was built on had been cleared, so that is why I promptly planted a pecan tree (among others!).

As many gardeners know, a transplanted tree will typically take about three years to settle into its new home, whether ball & burlap or container-grown. My pecan tree hasn’t done much, even though I thought I had been taking really good care of it. I buried a garden hose that ran from my closest faucet to the base of the tree, and then connected it to a soaker hose that circled the base of the tree out to the drip line. Each year I put out compost and mulch around the tree, widening the circle each year.

Last year I invested in a complete overhaul of my irrigation system which included a fancy-schmancy deep-root watering zone for my trees. Each tree has a 3-4 inch tube buried about 18 inches deep so that water can bubble down deep and be sure to reach the roots and virtually eliminate evaporation. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, all of this is very good, but I overlooked something very important: I never determined exactly where the base of the tree met the roots. Mr. Green-Thumb (my neighbor, mentioned him in an earlier post) has been telling me about this for years and I finally went out there to investigate.

This is the deal: trees need to breathe, just like the rest of us. They cannot breathe if dirt is piled up around the base, covering its topmost roots. In mine and Mr. Green-Thumb’s experience, MOST of the trees you buy from nurseries have too much dirt covering those all-important roots! And the time to correct the problem is at the time of planting…not years later when you finally get around to it! (again, I’m a dumb-butt). Here is a great illustration from the Texas Forest Service about the proper way to plant a tree…good advice no matter where you live!

I have some pictures to share, showing before, during, and after excavating the base of my pecan tree. I also am going to remove the turf grass (awful bermuda that I actually paid for) from around the pecan tree so that it does not have to compete for water and nutrients. That is what the plastic is for in the pictures below:

Walla! Well, really, I still need to go around the edges of the plastic and make slits in the ground so that I can tuck the plastic down into the ground. This will make the composting of the grass go faster and then the area around my pecan tree should be fairly grass-free.

So all of this for the birds? Well, not really, but certainly part of the bigger picture. Pecan trees offer birds cover, sap, and pecans. Pecan trees also host insects and their larvae, both of which provide important food for birds. As my pecan tree matures, it may even become a nest site, and the eventual deadwood limbs that fall will provide additional habitat when I use them in a brush pile in a corner of the yard.

Healthy trees are not only good for birds…they are good for people! Just sit under one for awhile and you’ll see what I mean