Resilient Magnolia
I have known this one Magnolia tree for ten years. I still remember seeing it for the first time because there was an obvious wound at the base from mowers. Poorly trained landscapers refused to get off the curb and mowed in a straight line, hitting the tree once a week. Now, ten years later, we have lessons to learn from this Magnolia case.
Mowers and tree bark don’t mix
Your mower doesn’t have the right of way. I train my workers to avoid tree collisions at all costs because trees are more valuable than grass.
When you hit trees you stress them out. Now instead of investing resources into new growth, they have to work on repairs. When I look at the street I can see that the other Magnolias are bigger, probably because they don’t get abused by mower decks weekly.
Weekly injuries can kill the tree.
Are we done?
A few weeks ago I shot a video of my worker mowing around the tree, never getting close enough to injure it. See the video below.
And then it hit me: if you mow straight today you will probably not touch the tree because the gap at the base is large enough ten years later to allow the mower to pass by! That’s comical.
Why isn’t the tree dead?
Trees are resilient! This particular Magnolia is smaller than its cousins nearby but it’s still standing and producing flowers and seed pods, after ten years of abuse. So why isn’t it dead? Pure luck?
Not really. Trees can build different protective walls around wounds which protect the tree from decay, diseases and insects. I suspect that’s what this Magnolia used its precious resources for: building real walls, not useless walls like Trump’s border wall.
The technical term is “compartmentalization” which refers to trees sealing off the wound. In arboriculture we use the acronym CODIT for compartmentalization of decay in trees.
Conclusion
Keep your mowers away from tree bark. Period. No excuses. Make it a habit and train your workers well.
Repeated wounding can stress and kill your tree.
