How to Select the Right Tree for Your Yard

If you're thinking of adding new trees to your landscape, now is the time. The best season to plant is in the spring before the buds appear. This is not a decision to take lightly. Take a little time before you get started to learn how to choose the right type of tree and location for your project, as well as proper planting procedures. We invite you to read the latest article in our Taking Root series titled The Time is Right for Planting Trees.

Spring Tree Care Tips

Now that winter is waning and spring is upon us, we begin to think about our annual spring cleanup. The days are getting longer and warmer and we are spending more time outside. It becomes easier to see the tree damage winter brings. Before you go grabbing Dad’s old chainsaw for some tree service, take a moment and read the following tips.

• First things first: If you find any downed power lines, steer clear and notify the power company immediately! (I know everyone knows this, it’s like the scissor running thing, but I felt compelled to say it anyway...).
• Do not use a chainsaw simply because you have one. Although they are extremely useful tools, they are also extremely dangerous. If you haven’t been trained, or are not familiar with it, ask someone for help (there is no shame in it) or use a handsaw. 
• If your going to remove a tree or large limb, be sure there are no power lines, property, or people that may interfere (not including your mother-in-law) with its safe removal.
• If you have to leave the ground to make the cut, and are not properly trained... STOP! Call a professional.
• Take the time and assess the situation. Imagine the worst case scenario. What would happen? What would you do? Are you alone? Did you leave yourself an "out"? 

We all want our property to look good (or at least slightly better than our neighbors). Trees are beautiful miracles of nature. They provide us with beauty, protection, and lots of leaves to rake in the fall. If you have any doubts regarding safety, consider hiring a professional. Your family wants you around and so do we. Besides, trees are much more enjoyable from above the soil line...

Taking Root

We have been given the opportunity by Seacoast Media Group to publish a monthly column we named Taking Root. The goal of this column is to help our community understand the importance of our natural landscape in the Seacoast, and moreover, give readers valuable guidance and information they can implement daily to make their property a healthier, more enjoyable place. When we all do what’s best for our personal landscape, the community as a whole benefits. We invite you to read our latest column titled "Trees can help raise your property value".

Seacoast Tree Care Gains Tree Care Industry Accreditation

Extra, Extra, Read All About It!

Sorry about that but we are a proud group today at Seacoast Tree Care! We recently gained accreditation under the Tree Care Industry Accreditation program. Below is an excerpt from a recent press release:

Stratham, NH (PRWEB) February 28, 2013

Seacoast Tree Care, after an extensive review by the Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA), has gained accreditation under the Tree Care Industry Accreditation program. TCIA Accreditation means Seacoast Tree Care adheres to all the accreditation standards and has undergone a rigorous application process. TCIA verified this by conducting an on-site audit of Seacoast Tree Care facilities and tree service work sites.
Under the accreditation process, businesses undergo extensive review of professional practices aimed at safeguarding consumers. The review includes:
► best business practices
► ethical business conduct
► formal training and certification of employees
► compliance with industry standards
► consumer satisfaction
► adherence to safety standards
► insurance coverage

You can read the entire article here.

ALERT! Winter Moth Spreads North To Maine

Winter Moth Caterpillar

Don't look now, but the infamous winter moth has officially debuted in Maine. Confirmed in the Cumberland county town of Harpswell last month, the moth now contaminates a 400 acre stretch. Stopping the winter moth outbreak is a code red mission for scientists, forest services, and you. This moth lays eggs that hatch into binge-eating caterpillars, devouring the leaves of any and all vegetation including oaks, cedars, even blueberry bushes. Have you seen trees with leaves like swiss cheese? Well, that could be the winter moth. A species native to Europe, the moth was found in Nova Scotia in the 1950s, and has since invaded tens of thousands of acres in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Maine is just the latest of our New England states to be hit.

We at Seacoast Tree Care would attack a winter moth problem by:

• Applying environmentally safe dormant oil sprays to unhatched eggs

• Hitting newly hatched caterpillars with bacteriums

• Using safe & powerful insecticides

• Tree banding for smaller infestations

In the meantime, you can help fight this common enemy of New England trees and wildlife. The sooner you recognize them the sooner they'll be stopped. If you catch these intruders hiding in your neighbor's trees, your state forest service or local tree service company should be called right away.

The Culprit: Moths are small and tan/light brown, with a series of hashmarks on their wings, although females are wingless. The caterpillars are green, with white or pale lines on their sides and one dark line on top.

Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Threatens Hemlock Trees Throughtout MA, NH and ME as it Moves Northward

It's here.
More than half of the properties with hemlocks that we look at have adelgid on them. I was recently in the Newburyport, MA area, and a majority of trees I saw had signs of infestation. This is a very destructive pest that can kill trees in 3-6 years. If you have hemlocks on your property please call us. There are a number of different treatment options available some providing 5 years of coverage.

This is a pest that affects us all, and must be treated before we lose an irreplaceable resource.

Please visit our site for more information on our tree service and preservation in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

The information below is courtesy of the USDA and the Forest Service:

	United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry NA-PR-09-05 August 2005

FIGURE 1.—Hemlock woolly adelgid ovisacs. Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Native to Asia, the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) is a small, aphidlike insect that threatens the health and sustainability of eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) and Carolina hemlock (Tsuga caroliniana) in the Eastern United States. Hemlock woolly adelgid was fi rst reported in the Eastern United States in 1951 near Richmond, Virginia. By 2005, it was established in portions of 16 States from Maine to Georgia, where infestations covered about half of the range of hemlock. Areas of extensive tree mortality and decline are found throughout the infested region, but the impact has been most severe in some areas of Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Hemlock decline and mortality typically occur within 4 to 10 years of infestation in the insect’s northern range, but can occur in as little as 3 to 6 years in its southern range. Other hemlock stressors, including drought, poor site conditions, and insect and disease pests such as elongate hemlock scale (Fiorinia externa), hemlock looper (Lambdina fiscellaria fiscellaria), spruce spider mite (Oligonychus ununguis), hemlock borer (Melanophila fulvogutta), root rot disease (Armillaria mellea), and needlerust (Melampsora parlowii), accelerate the rate and extent of hemlock mortality. Hosts The hemlock woolly adelgid develops and reproduces on all species of hemlock, but only eastern and Carolina hemlock are vulnerable when attacked. The range of eastern hemlock stretches from Nova Scotia to northern Alabama and west to northeastern Minnesota and eastern Kentucky. Carolina hemlock occurs on dry mountain slopes in the southern Appalachians of western Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. Eastern hemlock is also commonly planted as a tree, shrub, or hedge in ornamental landscapes. At least 274 cultivars of eastern hemlock are known to exist. Description The hemlock woolly adelgid is tiny, less than 1/16-inch (1.5-mm) long, and varies from dark reddish-brown to purplish-black in color. As it matures, it produces a covering of wool-like wax fi laments to protect itself and its eggs from natural enemies and prevent them from drying out. This “wool”  (ovisac) is most conspicuous when the adelgid is mature and laying eggs. Ovisacs can be readily observed from late fall to early summer on the underside of the outermost branch tips of hemlock trees (figure 1). Life History FIGURE 2.—Hemlock woolly adelgid nymphs in dormancy. FIGURE 3.—Chemical treatment using the soil injection method. FIGURE 4.—Predators introduced for control in the Eastern United States, left to right (origin): Sasajiscymnus tsugae (Japan), Scymnus sinuanodulus (China), and Laricobius nigrinus (Western North America). The hemlock woolly adelgid is parthenogenetic (all individuals are female with asexual reproduction) and has six stages of development: the egg, four nymphal instars, and the adult. The adelgid completes two generations a year on hemlock. The winter generation, the sistens, develops from early summer to midspring of the following year (June–March). The spring generation, the progrediens, develops from spring to early summer (March–June). The generations overlap in mid to late spring. The hemlock woolly adelgid is unusual in that it enters a period of dormancy during the hot summer months. The nymphs during this time period have a tiny halo of woolly wax surrounding their bodies (figure 2). The adelgids begin to feed once cooler temperatures prevail, usually in October, and continue throughout the winter months. The ovisacs of the winter generation contain up to 300 eggs, while the spring generation ovisacs contain between 20 and 75 eggs. When hatched, the fi rst instar nymphs, called crawlers, search for suitable feeding sites on the twigs at the base of hemlock needles. Once settled, the nymphs begin feeding on the young twig tissue and remain at that location throughout the remainder of their development. Unlike closely related insects that feed on nutrients in sap, the hemlock woolly adelgid feeds on stored starches. These starch reserves are critical to the tree’s growth and long-term survival. Dispersal and movement of hemlock woolly adelgid occur primarily during the fi rst instar crawler stage as a result of wind and by birds, deer, and other forest-dwelling mammals that come in contact with the sticky ovisacs and crawlers. Isolated infestations and long-distance movement of hemlock woolly adelgid, though, most often occur as the result of people transporting infested nursery stock. Control Cultural, regulatory, chemical, and biological controls can reduce the hemlock woolly adelgid’s rate of spread and protect individual trees. Actions such as moving bird feeders away from hemlocks and removing isolated infested trees from a woodlot can help prevent further infestations. State quarantines help prevent the movement of infested materials into noninfested areas. Chemical control options, such as foliar sprays using horticultural oils and insecticidal soaps, are effective when trees can be saturated to ensure that the insecticide comes in contact with the adelgid. Several systemic insecticides have also proven effective on large trees when applied to the soil around the base of the tree or injected directly into the stem (figure 3). Chemical control is limited to individual tree treatments in readily accessible, nonenvironmentally sensitive areas; it is not feasible in forests, particularly when large numbers of trees are infested. Chemical treatments offer a short-term solution, and applications may need to be repeated in subsequent years. The best option for managing hemlock woolly adelgid in forests is biological control. Although there are natural enemies native to Eastern North America that feed on hemlock woolly adelgid, they are not effective at reducing populations enough to prevent tree mortality. Therefore, biological control opportunities using natural enemies (predators and pathogens) from the adelgid’s native environment are currently being investigated. Several predators known to feed exclusively on adelgids have been imported from China, Japan, and Western North America and are slowly becoming established throughout the infested region (fi gure 4). It will likely take a complex of natural enemies to maintain hemlock woolly adelgid populations below damaging levels. Efforts to locate, evaluate, and establish other natural enemies continue. Pesticide Precautionary Statement Pesticides used improperly can be injurious to humans, animals, and plants. Follow the directions and heed all precautions on the labels. Note: Some States have restrictions on the use of certain pesticides. Check your State and local regulations. Also, because registrations of pesticides are under constant review by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, consult your county agricultural agent or State extension specialist to be sure the intended use is still registered. For additional information or copies of this publication, visit http://www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/hwa. USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry 11 Campus Boulevard, Suite 200 Newtown Square, PA 19073 www.na.fs.fed.us USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.