Backyard Wisdom - September 2020
by: Gilbert A Smith, ISA Board Certified Arborist

Forty-five years ago in Agronomy class I wondered what was so important about soil structure? Those of us in the plant world know that soil is made up of various ratios of sand, silt, clay and organic matter. We can test it for plant essential minerals like, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, etc. But what exactly is soil structure and why is it so important?

Mother Nature’s Moment - September 2020
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

Dr Alex Shigo, the father of modern arboriculture, once said: “Trimming your trees is one of the best things you can do for them, if you do it properly, and one of the worst things you can do, if you do it improperly.”

For a multitude of reasons we are seeing a huge number of trees that have been over trimmed or trimmed improperly. So what does that mean or what does it look like?

Wisdom from the Trees, January 2019, Backyard Wisdom
by: Gilbert A Smith, ISA BC Master Arborist and Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA Certified Arborist

I fondly remember the autumn smell of burning leaves when I was a kid in the 1950s. Our push mower wouldn't grind them up so my brothers and I had to rake all those leaves out to the street and burn them. In the 70’s the environmental movement stopped the burning and it became the responsibility of the villages and cities to haul the leaves away. This month I’ll tell you the story of leaves from the tree’s point of view. It may change the way you perceive this annual ritual of fall.

Red Oak, Quercus rubra

text and photos by:
Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA certified arborist

The Red Oak is one of our more common and beautiful native trees in the Oak family. Although susceptible to Oak wilt, a fungal pathogen that is potentially fatal, the Red Oak species are an important part of our urban forests. I love their fall color especially. Yet they have much to commend them all through the year. They have a long history of ethnobotany, the scientific study of the relationship between the use of plants by people. The Iroquois people had an interesting use of Red Oaks for healing ruptured navels. Callus bark or the rounded healing growth that appears when a tree is wounded would be scraped off the tree. This was then dried and powdered into a fine dust and then probably made into a paste and applied to the navel to assist in healing.

Backyard Wisdom by Gilbert A. Smith, ISA Board Certified Master Arborist
all photo credits: Lesley Bruce Smith

In Northern Illinois the dominant species, the king of the prairie, remains the giant Burr Oak. Standing strong where most trees fail. You can see it on hill tops and out crops from Chicago to Rockford and all the way through Iowa. Burr Oak still grows down south but it becomes far less prominent, while the Red and Shingle Oak, Sweet Gum, Red Maple and of course Sycamore are the trees we notice at 60 MPH.

The Flowering Dogwood, in October, was in burgundy fall color taking over the understory. In May before the big trees foliate, when the Dogwoods and Redbuds dress the forest in white and pink lace it is wonderful to behold the Tennessee and Kentucky woods. Though it is one of the best known flowering trees in the country I’d never even seen a flowering Dogwood until I was 17, when I left Illinois.    

Mother Nature’s Moment January 2015

photos and copy by: Lesley Bruce Smith
ISA Certified Master Arborist

This is one of the most common questions we get asked this time of year as arborists.  We know that the buds for next spring’s flush of new growth got formed last summer when the sun’s energy was really strong. It takes a lot of energy to push out all those lovely flowers and fresh green leaves each spring and trees are smart!  They take advantage of the sun’s energy when it’s hot.  Any branch on a tree, or an entire tree, that does not have live buds right now is obviously dead, and those that do have plump juicy buds waiting for spring’s longer warmer days, is alive.

Mother Nature’s Moment
by: Lesley Bruce Smith, ISA certified arborist

Team Tyler Rides

From time to time it is good to come to you not just as your arborists but as fellow human beings.  Eleven years ago this December we lost our 15 year old niece, Tyler Rebekah Byrd Smith to a rare form of germ cell cancer.  Sadly the funding for cancer research for pediatric cancers is only 4% of the national Federal totals.  This is the case even today, in spite of the fact that more children die of cancer in this country than AIDS, asthma, cystic fibrosis, congenital abnormalities and diabetes combined.  

Gil’s brother, Jon, and his wife Kim, Tyler’s parents, are riding their bikes across the USA, over 3000 miles, from San Diego, CA to St. Augustine, FL.

Tree of the month
Cucumbertree Magnolia  • Magnolia acuminata

Gilbert A Smith, ISA Certified Master Arborist

It’s a funny sounding name that doesn’t really capture this tree unless, of course, you’re just looking at the flowers and fruit, which must have been what the botanist that named it was looking at.  The hardiest of all the Magnolias the flower isn’t showy, white or pink the way you’d expect.  Flowers born on the upper parts of the tree, which grows 60 to 80 feet, you generally don’t know that you are looking at a magnolia at all.  If you look real hard the fruit does look a little like a cucumber.  I recommend it as a replacement for Ash trees and it’s among the best.

Tree of the Month
Hawthorne • Crataegus sp.

by Gilbert A Smith
ISA Certified Master Arborist

Thirty five years ago this month Lesley, my pretty young bride, stepped out from behind a Hawthorn and right there we were married in the middle of a grove of Downey Hawthorns in full flower. Every year when the Downeys dress up in their creamy, white clusters of daisy like flowers, we remember that happy day. If you were to pin me down I might say that the Downey Hawthorn is my favorite tree.

Here are the other reasons I like it...

Tree of the Month

Sycamore • Platanus occidentalis

O the moonlight’s fair tonight along the Wabash From the fields there comes the breath of new mown hay Through the Sycamores the candle lights are gleaming  On the banks of the Wabash, far away”

Maybe you recognize the state song of Indiana

The Sycamore tree is a standout, both because of its large size and it’s mottled white bark, that earns it the names of White Tree and Lacewood Tree. The bark of the Sycamore is too rigid to split or furrow as the tree expands (which is what most other trees do). Instead, “plates” of Sycamore bark break off and fall away revealing lovely, massive, white, mottled trunks.

Fire and Water, a story of climate on our trees...

or Drought, the Gift That Keeps on Giving

Mother Nature's Moment

by Lesley Bruce Smith ISA Certified Arborist

Water, Ice, Dust and Fire!

A Story of Illinois Soil by Gilbert A Smith 

ISA Certified Master Arborist

Fall Colors by Gilbert A SmithWhy is it that Illinois is called “The Prairie State” ?    Why is our climax forest ‘Oak/Hickory‘ when just 50 miles east in Michigan the climax forest is ‘Beech/Maple’ and why do most of our trees grow 30% shorter than they do almost everywhere else: North, South, East, or West?  Many texts say that our harsh climate inhibits the growth of many trees, (USDA zone map) but you are hearing it here first, THE REAL REASON IS THE SOIL.