Virtually all of my trees have bark problems (maple, oak, catalpa, ash, locust). I planted them about four years ago. The bark is peeling back, exposing the wood. This occurs only on sun-facing surfaces (southeast to southwest) so I presume it's sun damage. A local nursery told me to wrap them with plasitic spiral wrappers, but these seem to foster insects and spider nests. They can also can bind and "girdle" the tree. I suppose I could remove them and re-wrap them every month or so...Are there better ways to deal with this? All of the crowns look really good, but I'm worried about the trunks. The wrappers also help inhibit deer gnawing. I think maybe the problem began when the trunks were weakened by the deer chewing and rendered more vulnerable to the solar radiation. Any ideas on this multi- faceted problem would be very much appreciate.
- posted
16 years ago