Tree Care

Tree care is your responsibility to help ensure that your young tree grows to become large and healthy one. It is essential, and it's not as hard as you think. It includes watering, weeding, mulching and adjusting the support hardware as needed. Pruning should be done by a trained professional or by trained Tree Tenders.

There is plenty of tree care information available to you on the internet, but not all of it is based on current best practices.  Some of it is geared toward selling a particular product while other information may be out-dated.  Sorting through the information can be a daunting task, so we have done the work for you. 

Below you will find information that we find to be most comprehensive, easy to understand, and based on modern urban forestry practices. 

It is important to remember, however, that your ability to care for city-owned trees is limited to mulching, weeding, and watering.  Tree Tenders may pruned city owned trees during supervised Tree Care Days. While you can contribute to the larger maintenance needs of your street tree (e.g. pruning), you must first obtain a permit from the City of Pittsburgh Forestry Division.  The Forestry Division can be reached at (412) 665-3625.

 

Authored by Rebecca Koetter, Gary R. Johnson, and Dave Hanson: University of Minnesota
Funded in part by USDA Forest Service: Northeastern Area
Chart designed by Andrew Rose: www.handeye.us

If you'd like to download this chart as a PDF, click here!

 

Tree Care Posters
Bonnie Appleton, Professor of Horticulture, Virginia Tech

Dr. Appleton's popular tree care posters, developed with an Urban and Community Forestry Assistance Grant through the Virginia Department of Forestry, can be viewed and printed below. The posters are available in a smaller screen-viewable size (300 kb .jpg file) and a large (1-2 mb) Adobe pdf file for detailed viewing and printing