January 12, 2007 brought to southwest Missouri what became a three day assault of freezing rain to the trees and residents of our Ozarks region. The effects of this storm created more damage to our trees and power systems than has ever been seen in this area.

Southwest Missouri has long been proud of our large and beautiful trees. Majestic red and white oaks overseeing our daily lives, towering, hundred foot sycamores, groves of walnut trees, offering a bounty of tasty and valuable nuts in the fall, silver and red maple trees, showing their splendor in brilliant fall color, and many many other species, all promoting the quality of our air, water, and wildlife habitat. We’ve been blessed in the Ozarks with an amazing quantity and quality of natural beauty.

Many homeowners who are now greeted by the daily spectacle of their splintered and broken trees are wondering, “What’s going to happen to them? Are my trees going to die?”. The answers are not easy. Each tree should be accessed individually, with the goal in mind of saving as many trees as possible. Each species tend to fail in different ways, and respond differently to breakage. The health of the tree, before this storm hit, is probably the largest factor in its probability for survival. How it is taken care of after the storm is an important factor also.

Homeowners will be faced with some difficult decisions regarding how much risk they are willing to accept from their trees, and wether its best to have them trimmed, or to cut them down and replant.

Safety should be the first priority. Hangers (broken or partially broken limbs and tops held above ground level) should be removed, as they will eventually fall, causing injury or damage to anything below.

Trees with badly cracked trunks, or large splits on the main stems, and trees which have lost all of their branches are probably better off as firewood. As these heavily damaged trees continue to grow, and decay begins, the level of danger they present will increase. Future wind loading, especially if the tree has regrown a full canopy, could cause catostrophic failure in a compromised trunk which was left standing. Our area will continue to see tree problems related to this storm for decades to come.

Taking the top off a tree is the worst thing we can do, as it promotes fast, weak growth as the tree tries to regrow as much canopy as possible. In this storm, a very large number of our trees were topped by nature.

To help preserve these trees, they should be trimmed. Taking off the broken wood while leaving wounds as small as possible will help the tree to heal itself more quickly. If these heading cuts are made at a node (the spot on a branch or trunk where each previous years growth ended), it will allow the tree to regrow a branch or branches which are attached in the heartwood, instead of many branches attached by a weaker surface junction if the cut is made at any random spot. Having your trees trimmed by someone who knows how to identify the proper place to make the cut will result in trees which heal more quickly, and establish new growth patterns which will be strong and natural in appearance.

Limbs which have broken far from the trunk can be saved, but they also need trimmed to remove the broken and splintered wood at the end, making the cut at a lateral branch, or at least a node as close to the end of the breakage as possible.

Small cracks, which have not split open, and many small splits, wether mid branch, or at the trunk junction can be repaired with a high success rate, with the use of stainless steel allthread and washers and nuts. Larger splits can sometimes be repaired, but success is less certain, and costs are greater.

Damaged trees which receive no care will take far longer to heal over, if they are able to at all. They will be more susceptible to disease and insect infestation. Their life spans will be shortened, and their health and appearance during that span will be sub-par.

Our region has lost many trees. Many more will die or fail in the coming years from the effects of this storm. The best thing we can do to help our landscape and scenery is to spend some time planting trees. The Missouri Dept. of Conservation sells bundles of bare root seedlings for very inexpensive prices, with many native species available. Go to their website ( http://www.mdc.mo.gov/forest/nursery/seedling/ )to order now, as I’m sure their supplies are dwindling, and there is not much time left to place an order for this spring. While it’s preferable to plant native species, every tree we plant will help replace the many lost to January’s ice, so grab a shovel and plant a tree. Better yet, plant a dozen.