THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 17, 1995 TAG: 9509150258
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Random Rambles
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
About 20 years ago, I planted a silver maple in my back yard. Wrong. About 15 years ago, I planted a magnolia tree 10 feet from my house. Wrong. During this hot, dry summer I have watered the flowers, figuring that deep-rooted trees don't need help. Wrong.
If Kristin Dameron were a teacher instead of Chesapeake's official tree lady, she would flunk me on my final exam. But my dunce cap would have to be big enough for a lot of other heads because Dameron says plenty of people make the mistakes I've made.
Dameron is Chesapeake's arborist. That's a tree expert, which she has been since 1987 when she graduated from Virginia Tech. She's worked for the city since last December.
A Virginia Beach native, she started her college career with a fascination for geography. However, modern geography covers a lot more territory than knowing where Lower Slobovia is. It deals with natural resources, economics and agriculture. And while Dameron was mentally digesting all that stuff, a summer working for a landscaper stirred her interest in horticulture.
Even though most of us cuss our trees when the leaves start falling, they make our property more valuable. Residential lots with trees sell for anywhere from 5 to 15 percent more than lots without trees, Dameron says. I know that when we moved to Chesapeake from Norfolk that trees were a prime necessity. Yes, it was nice to have a roof and a front door, but trees were critical.
Though Chesapeake has no legal requirement that developers preserve trees, Dameron says 20 percent of a lot has to have tree coverage, either by saving what's there or replacing what's cut down. But replacement with scrubby youngsters does not salvage what's lost when when the chain saws whip through trees that have reached billowing maturity and have become treasured old friends.
For instance, you could have heard the wail of anguish from South Norfolk to the Carolina line a few years back when a developer chopped down an ancient oak at Knells Ridge to make room for another townhouse. Some of Chesapeake's best-known folks remembered playing and picnicking under that tree. Suddenly, it was firewood.
On the other hand, tree preservation takes more thought than hugging the trunk. Disturbing the land around a tree can kill it just as dead. Ideally, Dameron says, trees need a foot of space around them for every inch of diameter. Thirty-inch tree, 30 feet of undisturbed space around it. Because that would chew up so much land, the usual compromise is no disturbance under the outer limit of the branches. That includes piling dirt, which can suffocate roots.
As for my dumb tree moves, Dameron explained that silver maples used to be popular trees because they grew fast. but they're brittle. When the bough breaks, it falls right along with the cradle. Also, be careful about planting Bradford pear trees, Dameron says. They can be breakably brittle just like the maples. Another no-no is photinia. In recent years, it has developed a fungus that can kill the bushes like they were losers in a gang war with Al Capone.
Then there's that magnolia 10 feet from the house, 25 feet would have been about right, Dameron says. Shorter trees like redbuds and dogwoods can be 15 feet from the house. One of the risks in planting too close is that roots can find cracks in foundations and pipes the way burglars find unlocked doors. And trees too close to the house can mash a roof.
A couple of other common tree mis-treatments are planting them under power lines and planting them too close to each other. You dig the holes and plop the little rascals in, never stopping to consider that Momma Nature can eventually turn her midgets into monsters.
If your new tree does become a monster and you need it professionally trimmed, beware of ``topping,'' Dameron says. That's an un-expert way of just chopping off the top branches and it can lead to decay. Dameron recommends dealing with people certified by the International Society of Arborculture. She has a list available.
And as for my figuring that a tree, like a camel, can go a lo-o-o-ong time without water, Dameron said that a tree actually needs to schlurp the equivalent of a couple of inches of water a week.
You can see that Dameron delivered a full load of tree expertise, but I had one last lament for her: What do I do about gum balls?
Summoning up her college education and her years of professional experience, she told me the secret of how she handles them when they fall in her back yard. ``I just don't worry about them,'' she said. by CNB