Common Tree Problems in a Garden

Hi! I'm Scott Reil on behalf of expertvillage.com I would like to talk to you about tree and shrub maintenance. If you are anything like me trees are practically a member of your family old Marvin here is certainly a member of ours. But he is not feeling very well see Marvin was struck a few years ago by lighting unfortunately it was before my time here and I was not able to take care of it to I have gotten here just a few years ago but there is some things that we could do to help take care of it. But I want to point out a few things that you could look for on a tree to understand whether or not if you have problems and issues. One of things to look for on a tree like this is a deep scar running down somewhere like this, this is probably where lighting ran down Marvin when he was struck and ran into the ground. These are often a spiral marking around the tree that is a real sure sign that it was lighting damaged. What happen there somebody prune back inside the bark collar so the tree was unable to compartmentalize and take care of the wound its own way and grow over it. Now you could see it left a open area where fungus and insects that all the little holes up there as got in and are started to attack the tree. So Marvin got multiple problems at this point. This is a conk and while it is kind of pretty to look at and you often see them in painting and artist protrails there is even conk called the artist conk this is always a hard bringer of doom. Something bad is going on in your tree if it is growing conks you see them coming off of the side of the tree like this and in this particular case conk means that it has brown butt rot. If it was further up the tree like I have put it here it probably means that it has trunk rot. You are not going to be able to identify all the conks but your professional arbores would be and if you should start to see problems like this or problems with big branches or big problems that is the best person to talk to and consult. But stay tune and we would show you some more tips and tricks to help keep your tree healthy so you don't have to call the doc.