6.0 Blog

Its a fact. People living next to each other will ultimately facilitate reinfection of trees kept in good condition. Its the same situation for children in childcare. Citrus trees are prone to something called bronze orange bug (BOB) or ‘stink bugs’. These are sap sucking insects. They suck the sap from new shoots and cause tip dieback, stops flowering, and retards health / vigour.

Thats the bad news. The good news is that they can’t ‘sting’ us. However some safety precautions need to be met and exceeded. They have a spray that gets into human eyes and causes a horrible reaction. Its extremely painful, and can cause temporary blindness. Safety glasses are recommended to shield the operator from this malady. Secondly they spray stains skin, and can cause irritation to cuts (and of course citrus spines create scratches, plus the irritation can be rather painful). Gloves are recommended, and fine tuned ones, to permit dexterity of your fingers.

Methods are easy to control these bugs; simply pick them off and put them into a jar of water with a splash (10 – 20 mL) of dish detergent. Once there are too many bugs in the detergent, pick them out (dont worry! they cannot bite you!) and put them into a larger jar.

Done! Repeat in a week, and again a week again and monitor.

The biggest danger to people amongst urban trees is poor management. All trees grow on extremities, ensheathing current growth (like a sock over a sock), cutting off leaves, lower / interior limbs, shedding and thereby facilitating further growth. Decay (fungus) kicks in, releasing nutrients and the cycle of life continues.

This is normal, healthy and predictable. We ask a lot from our urban trees. Perfect growth, structure, shape, symmetry, and safety.

The safety of a tree can be vastly improved by removing the deadwood to the collar.

1.  The material is removed! Cut and dropped in a controlled environment, it is pushed through a chipper and disposed of in a safe manner.
2. When the dead limb is cut to collar (See australian standards for pruning amenity trees; AS 4373) then the tree is permitted to commence to enfurl the wound and seal it in from decay. Decay is a leading cause of problems in trees. Decayed trees fail eventually.
3. This sealing over is efficient use of nutrients / growth, and therefore the tree (on a cellular level) can use the excess of tissue / nutrients to strengthen where necessary, fight other decays etc, thereby providing the necessary resources in an ever increasing struggle against the elements as senescence continues.

This is the single most item we recommend for the health and vigour of trees, and the easiest way to make your home safe immediately, and in the long term.