Let’s Talk About Our Trees
During this time of global climate change and our continuing drought we at Ojai Trees want to share a message to take care of our trees. The extra care you give them will be paid back ten fold in shade, carbon dioxide sequestration, and water retention.
Water your trees. You may have let your grass go but your trees need some of that water we are no longer using on our lawns, even the mature ones. By slow dripping your trees and supplying a two-inch layer of mulch around their canopy you can help them avoid a premature death and ensure many more years of service to you, our community and our wildlife. Find out how to do it easily and correctly on our website www.ojaitrees.org
Avoid unnecessary pruning during the heat of summer. Unless you have a broken branch that is creating a danger please leave the trimming to later in the fall or before nesting season in the spring. Your tree needs that foliage to protect it from our ever increasingly hot sun. without the shade their leaves provide they can get sunburn. That sunburn damages and stresses the tree, hampering the nutrient and moisture highway of their bark.
If you need to prune never top a tree. Topping, removing or trimming all the top branches of a tree indiscriminately, leads to poor weaker growth in your tree. Topping will lead to bigger problems down the line, including limb failure, and a local certified arborist will never recommend it. Instead a tree’s structure needs to be respected. Nature is the original architect and if it is “the right tree, in the right place” it will need pruning less frequently if it is done correctly.
Only hire an experienced company with a certified arborist to do any trimming or maintenance on your trees. They will be familiar with our native trees, our micro-climate here in the valley, and our tree ordinance that is meant to safeguard our trees. If tree work is done by a tree service without an arborist on staff keep in mind it is illegal in Ojai to cut limbs of more than 4” in circumference on any Oak, Sycamore, mature or Heritage Tree without a tree permit ( https://ojai.ca.gov/trees/ ). According to the City website, “The City of Ojai adopted a Tree Ordinance in order to recognize oak, sycamore, heritage, and other mature trees as having significant historical, aesthetic, and ecological importance, and to create favorable conditions for the preservation and propagation of this unique, irreplaceable plant heritage for the benefit of current and future residents of the City.”
As a homeowner we hope you feel a responsibility to care for your trees much like a parent does for a child.You wouldn’t take your child to an unlicensed doctor, please don’t subject your trees to the harm an untrained tree worker can do.
Trees are a large part of what makes Ojai such a livable, walkable community. They are our partners in living with climate change.
