Dear Editor:
I have noticed several trees around town shrouded with green plastic bags. None of them had any water in them that I could fathom. I have planted hundreds of trees, starting when I was eight years old. Not once did we wrap plastic bags around them.
The rule was to water them every day for a week and them once a week for three weeks and they would be fine unless there were drought conditions and then you would water them as needed.
According to arborists these bags give shelter to insects that feed on the bark of the tree and cause rot because they are covered in plastic and the air can not flow around them. If it is too difficult to water them, they would be best left bag-less and would very probably survive happily on their own as young trees have been doing for eons.
A newly planted tree should not have the soil heaped around the base. The rule is that the nub at the bottom of the tree should be visible and the soil should be drawn back around the base in a circle around the edge of the tree. They say it should be like a volcano not a mountain.
Many trees around Fergus have the soil drawn up around the trunk and this also can cause damage to the bark.
Give these little trees a chance. Also, they don’t need to be tied to poles to support them either. These just rub the bark off.
Thank you in advance for freeing the trees!
Christy Doraty,
Fergus