2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
In many gardens and parks, you can often see trees with whitewashed trunks. At the same time, some ignorant and completely far from dacha cares people believe that this is done exclusively for beauty. Indeed, freshly whitened trunks give trees a much more attractive and even somewhat elegant look, but in fact, trees are whitened not only for aesthetic purposes, but also for many other reasons. Why is this done?
Why are tree trunks whitewashed?
The tree bark provides trees with reliable protection, because it protects their most important parts from various damage. However, at times, bark alone is not enough to keep trees growing and feeling well. And this is where whitewashing comes to the rescue!
Firstly, whitewashing of trees helps to preserve the integrity of the bark and to significantly reduce the likelihood of damage to trees by frost breakers. Secondly, whitewashing significantly reduces the risk of bark cracking under the influence of winter or spring temperature changes, which make trees more susceptible to various pests and all kinds of diseases. Thirdly, it provides trees with reliable protection from insect pests that love to settle in the crevices of the tree bark. And, fourthly, whitewashing of trees protects them from sunburn - on clear winter or spring days, foliageless trees often get sunburn, and whitewashing perfectly repels the rays of the sun that are dangerous for non-leafed trees, significantly reducing the risk of various damage to the bark and fatal burns. In short, whitewash is endowed with a huge number of protective properties!
It is especially important not to give up the autumn whitewashing of tree trunks - this is one of the prerequisites for the proper preparation of trees for the coming winter. And spring whitewashing, in addition to protecting against pests, also performs a decorative function!
How to whiten?
On the shelves of modern stores today you can see a huge assortment of a wide variety of paints for garden trees. Ready-made paints are able to stay on tree trunks for up to two years, they are washed off to a much lesser extent by rains and do not require the preparation of special solutions. However, lime remains the most popular raw material for whitewashing tree trunks to this day! Lime is available to everyone (it literally costs a penny) and is very easy to use, and therefore many summer residents prefer to stop their choice on it.
To prepare a composition for whitewashing from quicklime (such lime looks like limestone lumps), it is poured with water in a ratio of 1: 1. The process of lime dissolution is invariably accompanied by the release of heat, as a result of which the mixture begins to actively bubble and, as it were, boil. It is extremely important to be careful when preparing such a composition - ideally, you should wear special goggles on your eyes, and gloves on your hands. Another great option is to purchase slaked lime: such lime is already ready for dilution with water, and its cost is very low.
Slaked fluff lime in the amount of two kilograms is dissolved in ten liters of water, and in order to significantly enhance the protective properties of the valuable composition, many summer residents often add copper sulfate to it (300 g for every ten liters). And since only fresh slaked lime acts best on various pests and suddenly overpowered fungi or lichens, it is better to prepare a lime solution a couple of hours before starting whitewashing. If it stays for at least a day, its effect will significantly decrease. At the same time, for whitewashing young trees, the lime solution should be weaker than for whitewashing adult trees, that is, more water will be required in this case.
How to whitewash trees?
Before you start whitening trees, they must be cleaned of peeling old bark, as well as lichens and mosses that cover them (most often old trees need such preparation). And in order not to accidentally damage the bark, you need to act with extreme caution. A hard washcloth is quite suitable for treating the trunks, and you can penetrate the cracks with a blunt knife or a sharpened chip.
After all the above manipulations, it will not hurt to disinfect the trunks - for these purposes, an ash and soap solution or a three or five percent solution of copper sulfate is perfect. In the event that, after cleaning the trunks, wounds were found on the bark, they must be treated without fail with special putties or garden pastes purchased in the store. And only after that you can start the whitewashing process itself, for which you will have to acquire a wide paint brush. And if the volume of work is very impressive, you can resort to using a spray gun.
The height of the whitewash is the very moment about which there is still fierce controversy. Some summer residents try to whitewash the trees to the height that a hand can only reach, grabbing the bases of the thick branches located below, others try to whiten the trunks only to the lower branches, and still others whitewash young trees up to young shoots (capturing the lower branches). Well, some summer residents consider the most optimal whitewash height to be one and a half meters. As for the experts, they argue that the height of the whitewash does not matter at all, the main thing is to whitewash not only the trunks, but also all sufficiently large and thick branches, the bark of which can easily crack under the influence of spring temperature changes!
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