With spring just around the corner in Walled Lake, it is almost time to start thinking about tree and shrub care. Trees planted on your landscape are more vulnerable to pests, drought, and tree diseases than those living in the forest. Here is a list of the vital tree care services your ornamentals need to stay protected and healthy throughout the year.
Vibrant green grass is all well and good, but sometimes we yearn for more colors in our yard. Consider one of these lovely flowering trees or shrubs! Not only will they provide a splash of color to your yard, but many also provide a delicate fragrance as well! As a bonus, you’ll also make your outdoor space more hospitable for pollinators like bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds!
Also known as the alternate leaved dogwood, this tree flowers in spring each year and reaches about 30 feet – a medium height as far as trees are concerned. Native to the eastern US,
pagoda dogwood provides beautiful colors all year round. In spring, the flowers produced are whitish-yellow, which turn to bluish-black berries. In fall, the leaves become a gorgeous shade of reddish-purple. And as you may have discerned from its name, the pagoda dogwood grows in tiered layers, resembling the pagodas of Asia.
Some flowering trees, like magnolias, only provide color for the briefest time. If you opt for a weeping cherry tree, you won’t have this problem. Weeping cherries provide color in many ways – not only in their blossoms. First, the flowers come in spring. Like many cherry trees, the flowers of weeping cherries are pink. As the season progresses, you’ll notice the leaves of this plant are a beautiful glossy green. In fall, the green turns to a lustrous gold hue. Even in winter, this tree doesn’t disappoint. When all the leaves have fallen, you can still enjoy the bark, which turns a shimmering bronze.
Weeping cherries will tolerate many different conditions, including full sunlight or partial shade and dry soil. They also require minimal pruning! And if the colors alone weren’t a good enough reason to choose a weeping cherry tree, the maintenance required by this tree should convince you.
This deciduous shrub is renowned for the astringent produced from the bark of young stems and roots. It’s commonly found in natural health food stores and popular in skincare routines. Witch hazel makes a great contribution to your yard later in the year – providing you with blooms when all the other flowers have gone away for winter. Blooms occur from October through December and produce fragrant yellow flowers. The leaves also give off vibrant yellows and oranges each fall. While witch hazel likes soil on the damper side, it will tolerate various conditions. Make sure to plant it somewhere it can receive full sun or some shade. If left untrimmed, witch hazel reaches middling heights o 15 – 30 feet.
Northern catalpa is quite the looker, known for its twisting trunk and lovely arching branches. Flowers produced are large, white, and slightly fragrant. These blooms are similar in appearance to irises. Northern catalpa favors moist, well-drained loamy and clay soils and blooms every May and June. The distinctive leaves are about a foot long, up to 8 inches wide, and heart-shaped. This is one of the fastest-growing trees, reaching between a foot and two feet per year. It’s also naturally resistant to rot, which is why it was a popular choice for fencing and railroad ties back in the day. There is one catch, though: you’ll need to wait about seven years after planting a sapling before you see blooms. While this may be discouraging, the blooms are well worth the wait. And in the meantime, you can enjoy the shade produced.
If you’ve never smelled the wonderful fragrance put off by a lilac before, you’re truly missing out. This deciduous shrub comes in all kinds of colors, from light to dark purple, white, and pink. Blooming in late spring, the flowers produce one of the loveliest scents you can find. Lilacs prefer loads of sun and well-drained moist soil. As for pruning, you’ll be doing the plant a favor by cutting its flowers so you can enjoy them indoors. Pruning just after flowing helps lilacs keep their shape, though they’ll always grow irregularly.
Spring and fall are the ideal time to plant snowball viburnum. This easy-to-grow shrub is famous for the large clusters of white flowers that resemble hydrangeas. Starting out green, the blooms fade to white and then a light pink. Even after the flowers have gone away, this shrub produces eye-catching reds and orange leaves when fall comes. While it’s not a great idea to eat the berries yourself, birds are highly attracted to the berries produced once the flowers have gone away. So if helping out the local wildlife population is important to you, snowball viburnum might be the ideal choice!
Want some more colors in your yard this year? Enlist the help of professional tree planting services from PPM Tree Service & Arbor Care. Our certified arborists will handle the installation and help you decide which tree species will do best in your yard. Plus, our trees come with a 1-year warranty! Once your new plant friend is established, we’ll help you care for it with our tree pruning services, so dead or dying branches are removed, and your tree retains its shape. To learn more, start a conversation with a professional arborist by calling (877) 454-8733, or you can send us a message online here.
As Michiganders, we take great pride in our trees. Trees planted in lawns are much more vulnerable to the elements, pests, drought, and diseases. Tree diseases are hard to spot and some can take years to begin to show symptoms but if they aren’t treated in time the entire tree could be lost. Check out this list of common and deadly tree diseases found in Westland, Michigan and how proper tree and shrub care can help protect them.
Michigan is famous for its fruit trees – especially apples. Discover interesting facts about this grocery store staple including the most popular varieties and how PPM Tree Service & Arbor Care can help care for fruit trees on your property!
Michigan’s winters are some of the worst in the nation. When you’ve got a business to run, dealing with snowfall on your commercial property takes valuable time out of your day. Save your business time, money, and effort with PPM Tree Service & Arbor Care’s commercial snow removal services.
Did you know that Michigan is one of the top producers of real Christmas trees in the United States? With all of the many types of trees available to choose from, how do you pick which one is right for your house and your family? Some trees have soft needles, some work better for holding ornaments, and some keep their needles better than others. Your friends at PPM Tree Service are here to help you decide and make your holiday season a little less stressful.
Whether you’re looking to use your brand new fireplace for the first time or want to dust off the fireplace you haven’t touched in years, there are many benefits to utilizing your structure. And rather than lug firewood home every week from the grocery store, you can have it delivered to your door with PPM Tree Service.
Known for their striking white bark, birch trees are one of the most beautiful and versatile trees around. As part of our series on neat tree facts, today we’ll explore this North American favorite.
When it comes to pruning trees, it’s so much more than hacking off branches and shaping the limbs. It’s a vital process that improves both the health and appearance of your largest plants.
October might be the best time to be a Michigander. Football season is in full swing, the temperatures are cool enough for sweaters, and autumn leaf color is absolutely splendid. Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to visit Michigan’s Tunnel of Trees to see for yourself. Have you ever wondered why trees turn those vibrant shades of red, orange, and yellow? That’s the question we’ll answer in today’s blog.
During the normal growing season, trees absorb compounds called carotenoids – yes, this is also what gives carrots their orange color. During spring and summer, the green chlorophyll, which plants use for photosynthesis, is actively working to capture sunlight and turn it into food for the trees. As such, the greenness of the chlorophyll covers the carotenoids. However, they will no longer be dominant in the fall.
When the temperature begins to lower in fall, the chlorophyll breaks down and degrades, going from green to completely colorless. When this happens, the oranges and yellows can take their place, and voila! Fall colors!
In fall, the most notable examples of red-leaved trees are red maples, sugar maples, black gums, dogwoods, sourwoods, and oaks. Unlike orange and yellow pigments, red is not present during summer. When trees have red leaves in autumn, it’s because they have started producing a pigment called “anthocyanin.” For us humans, who can appreciate beautiful colors, this looks gorgeous. Trees don’t have a concept of beauty, however. Instead, they need this pigment to prepare themselves for the long road to winter.
Believe it or not, anthocyanin is a tree’s version of sunscreen. It helps protect them from the bright autumn sun when it’s colder outside. When trees receive too much light, it can interfere with nutrient transport from the leaves to the branches. Some scientists also suspect that the red color is meant to discourage insects from sheltering on the tree. When trees are vibrant red and therefore have ample anthocyanin, bugs may seek out trees that aren’t as healthy. That’s why proper tree care is so important. The healthier the tree, the less likely it is to fall prey to insects and diseases.
The years when we experience the best fall colors Michigan offers are when days are sunny and nights are steadily getting colder. This gradual cooling signals the trees to start producing sugars, which tells the leaves to make anthocyanin. 
If there’s a great deal of cloud cover, rain, or heath lingering in late summer and early fall, it could produce less exciting, duller colors. Conversely, you don’t want the frost to come too early. Just as a pilot needs to steadily lower a plane to land, so too does the temperature need to drop at a gentle rate for trees to get that brilliant color.
Evergreens aren’t called that for nothing. Also known as conifers, they will keep their greenery year-round. Trees that aren’t conifers fall into the other category: deciduous. This covers all trees that lose their greenery in autumn, remain bare through winter, and sprout new greenery in spring. The short answer has to do with the availability of water. When there isn’t enough moisture, leaves can’t function properly. To conserve its resources, the tree will shed its leaves. Technically, evergreen needles are leaves, and they do shed them. If you’ve got an evergreen tree in your yard, you no doubt have noticed that needles are often so thick beneath it that nothing can grow. However, evergreens are not classified as deciduous because their leaf shedding is not tied to a specific season. Rather, their needles are like hairs on the human head. If you brush your hair every day, you might lose a few strands, but your hair does not fall out every fall and regrow in the spring.
Whether you’ve already got plenty of fall foliage or would like to add some to your yard, the professionals at PPM Tree Service & Arbor Care are here to help. From planting saplings to pruning mature trees, we will ensure your yard is bursting with colorful, healthy trees every fall for years to come. To learn more about our services, give us a call at (877) 454-8733, or you can reach us through our online form.
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