In the Garden with Kerry Heafner

Folks, as the ArkLaMiss has moved into spring, it seems the number of severe weather events is on the rise, and with the possibility of severe weather comes the possibility of damage from high winds, hail, lightning strikes, and saturated soils due to heavy rains.  It’s never too late or too early to start taking precautions in anticipation of severe weather.  Keep drainage ditches around your home and property clear.  Don’t count on the city or parish to do this for you.  Resources are already stretched thin.  Take the initiative to do this yourself.  Also, make sure you have a way to receive weather alerts either from the National Weather Service or from local radio and television stations 24 hours a day.  Download the app for your favorite station and follow our local meteorologists on their various social media platforms.  And be sure to keep mobile devices fully charged should you lose electricity.

In addition, make sure large specimen trees on your property are in good overall health.  Well-maintained, healthy trees will be more likely to repel pests and pathogens, will exhibit healthy shoot and root growth and expansion, and be more likely to escape severe damage from severe weather events.  This is a year-round responsibility that includes fertilizing in spring, watering during a dry summer, and proper pruning in fall and winter.  Proper pruning is important for keeping the canopy open enough for adequate air circulation.  This keeps the interior dry and free of fungal pathogens and allows sunlight to penetrate for healthy new growth.  Of paramount importance is the thoughtful placement of large, specimen trees in the landscape, especially in an urban setting.  As crews have been clearing powerline rights of way recently, this has been the subject of spirited discussion, so let’s look at this.  

I think everybody will agree that trees add a much-needed aesthetic to any city landscape.  In fact, the first ever photograph of a human (a daguerreotype taken in 1838 by none other than Louis Daguerre himself) shows a man on a Paris street ostensibly having his shoes polished, and the Boulevard Du Temple is lined with…you guessed it…small trees.  They give a 19th Century city street a more bucolic aesthetic.  In 21st Century Louisiana, how can we not love the sweeping vistas offered by the magnificent oak alleys of antebellum homes like Rosedown in St. Francisville or Oak Alley in Vacherie.  The planters of those magnificent trees likely knew they would not live to experience the views we can today.

Having major thoroughfares lined with trees has additional benefits.  Trees provide shade and reduce hot temperatures and heat reflected off concrete, asphalt, and metal.  Trees remove pollutants from the air.  They also remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and, through the biochemical reactions of photosynthesis, convert it into cellulose, glucose, and other carbohydrates mainly to make more biomass.  So, yes, the value of trees in urban settings is undeniable.  And in this community, we love our trees.  However, there is a more practical side to this.  The trees lining that parish boulevard in that early photograph and the oak alleys of those plantation homes were all established long before powerlines, and herein lies the conundrum.

Folks, it doesn’t matter if your property is rural or urban, it’s never a good idea to place large, specimen quality shade trees close to powerlines.  We’ve seen the outcome right here in our own community.  Strong storms with damaging winds and heavy rains that quickly saturate soils cause large trees to topple over and if powerlines are in the way, they’re coming down, too.  Crews have to remove debris first then repair damaged lines and/or poles.  If many trees are affected and many utility lines are affected, restoring electricity takes a while.  Crews are put at risk and homeowners are without power.  This is precisely why power companies maintain rights of way for powerlines.  Back in the mid-90s, I did contract work for a power co-op in western North Carolina that was implementing a low-volume, selective herbicide application program to manage tree species in their rights of way, especially those on steep slopes where trucks couldn’t possibly go.  I was contracted to do botanical surveys of the rights of way and document and mark any threatened or endangered plant species so the spray crews would avoid them.  It was a great plan.  It worked.  So, I know from experience how serious power companies are about maintaining powerline rights of way and do so aggressively.  We know how this goes in our area, too.  Trees encroaching on the lines are butchered.  Homeowners and citizens complain.  What was cut away eventually regrows in a more unruly fashion.  Trees get butchered again. Homeowners and citizens complain. Repeat. 

Now, it is true that indiscriminate pruning (and I here use that term very loosely) of large trees has some negative effects.  The first is purely visual.  A large Live Oak or Southern Magnolia or Sycamore not allowed to have a full canopy and take on the natural shape of that species is unsightly.  I see a lot of cases around the community where I think to myself, “They might as well just take the entire tree down.”  Second, a lopsided canopy can make the tree top heavy and subject to being toppled over by fierce winds.  If what’s left of the tree falls into the power line, nothing has been accomplished.  If the tree comes down anyway during a severe storm, the city or property owner has a mess to clean up.  Consider this:  Live Oaks have a distinctive architecture with a relatively short vertical trunk with many spreading branches that make up most of the tree’s shape.  Their distinctive architecture allows them to withstand hurricane-force winds better than other oak species, a great adaptation to life in the Coastal South.  When we start messing with the overall natural shape of these trees, they’re not as likely to withstand severe weather.  Also, the lighting scheme of a yard or property could have changed in an instant because the shade source is now gone.  This happened to a section of Monroe’s Garden District back in 2014 when a tornado touched down.  Yards normally in full shade were transformed into full sun areas in a matter of minutes.  Clean up after that storm was tremendous and costly.  Entirely different sun-adapted plant selections had to be installed in a lot of yards.  Six years later, Hurricane Laura would have much the same effect.  Third, a tree that has been indiscriminately hacked on will be subject to any number of fungal infections.  Our warm and humid climate supports an impressive fungal flora, and many fungal species are wood rotters.  Gaping wounds in branches and tree trunks set the scene for wood rotting fungi to kill the tree slowly from the inside out.     

Folks, it all boils down to the adage of “the right tree in the right place at the right time.”  Placing large trees near power lines isn’t smart.  We know what’s going to happen eventually, so why bother?  The safest option for both the property owner and the utility crew that may have to clear tree debris to restore electricity is to avoid power lines and poles.  Don’t plant anything near them!  

Here are some suggestions.

  • Don’t plant anything within at least 30’ from both under the power line and the pole.

  • Whether you live in town or out in the parish, select small to medium-size tree species that require minimal management and allow utility crews easy access to power lines for the front side of a property. These include natives like Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis), Grancy Grey Beard (Chionanthus virginicus), Dogwood (Cornus florida), or in a wetter situation, Alder (Alnus serrulata).  Non-natives like Chaste Tree (Vitex agnus-castus), Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum cultivars), and compact cultivars of Japanese Magnolia (Magnolia X soulangiana), among others, could also be used.  Rather than plant Crepe Myrtles that reach a mature size over 20 or 30 feet tall, plant dwarf varieties instead.

  • Large trees like Live Oaks (Quercus virginiana), Water Oak (Q. nigra) and Willow Oak (Q. phellos), American Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda) and others should be placed in areas where either there are no power lines or where they can be at least 60’ away from existing lines.  

Large trees do what they do best when they are allowed to grow uninhibited.  When it comes down to man vs. Mother Nature, my money is on Mother Nature all day long.