Steve Nix is a member of the Society of American Foresters and a former forest resources analyst for the state of Alabama. Removing the dead and injured bark from around the wound with a sharp knife ...

Q: I heard that you shouldn’t use wound sealer when pruning your trees — that it does more harm than good. Is this true? A: Yes, it’s true. When pruning your trees, you should not use any sealer on ...

Q: A branch broke off my tree during a storm. What do I put on the tree to protect it from disease? A: While it is great that you are thinking of tree health, there is nothing you should put on the ...

Don't stress if you have a tree that's not looking its best in the bark department. You can save a tree with damaged bark by first assessing the type of damage. Once you know the severity, you have a ...

I received an urgent call last week. A tractor had knocked a big chunk of bark off of an oak tree and the owner wanted to know what to do about the wound.This kind of incident is all too common, ...

Trees can be expensive and are valuable plants we need to avoid injuring. Wounds are openings for decay organisms and trees expend energy for wound sealing, setting them up for other issues. During ...

A question for Dan Gill: Dan, do I need to seal small- to medium-sized freshly cut live oak branches with wound care paint? Cuts will be no larger than 8 inches in diameter. I have a small grove of ...

Q: I had some lower branches trimmed from my ponderosa pine in December. How long will it take for the sap to quit flowing? A: Sap flowing from a tree wound is part of its defense system . The sap ...

Homeowners may be seeing some lingering effects of last year’s 17-year cicada emergence in smaller branches of trees, but it’s nothing to worry about. “The trees will be fine in the long run, even if ...