I don't have much of a lawn because it's a Southern California lawn. Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life, that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting, while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast.

Today I'm going to talk about arborists, my recent experience with an arborist, a tree specialist. Now, I've talked about our redwood tree before, if you're a regular listener. We have a huge redwood tree in our front yard that everybody, everybody seems to want to comment about. Usually they say, wow, what a tree. Or gosh, isn't this a beautiful tree. Or gee, that's a big tree. Or oh, is that a pine tree, that's a big tree, or oh, is that a pine tree? Anyway, but in the backyard we have a tangerine tree and I remember my dad planting it sometime in the 70s. It was a long time ago and it's grown quite a bit since then. It's quite large. It's oh gosh. I'm looking at it now it's probably at least 20 feet wide at the widest point and it's let's see, I'm not very good with dimensions I would say it's at least 20 feet tall. It's a big tangerine tree and it's provided quite a bit of shade over the years to our patio area but also quite a bit of fruit to us. It's been a great, great tree and my dad loved it, we all loved it. Well, I shouldn't talk about it in the past tense yet.

Two years ago we had an incredible crop of tangerines. Usually they start growing. Let's see, this is August. Now they start appearing on the tree, I think in June, maybe, maybe in June, and they're starting to be green. They're about the size of marbles now. So it used to be by December they would be ready to be picked, and in recent years, maybe by late January, february, they've been ready to be picked, which is interesting to me that it's kind of changed over the years. But two years ago we had just an incredible crop of tangerines. I would say we had hundreds, at least 300 or 400 tangerines on this tree. Every branch had some fruit. It was just incredible.

Also, that summer we had water restrictions. That's when it started, because of the drought and because of other factors. They were repairing an aqueduct in our area and so we weren't allowed to water outside for two weeks. I mean, of course I, you know, save some water from the inside of the house and I would water specific parts and parts of things, water specific parts and parts of things, but it got really dry, a lot of things got really dry in the yard, and that's when I started to notice a change in the tree and it was also incredibly hot. The September, october time of year was incredibly hot.

So all these factors led to me noticing that there were more leaves falling off. The leaves would turn yellow and eventually they would drop and I started to get concerned. So I talked to a friend of mine who knows an arborist that he's used and I sent him pictures and I said you know, should, should your arborist friend come out? And he said no, he just says it needs more water. Just a blanket statement like that. I also took pictures to my local nursery and I asked their their advice and they told me that it was getting too much water. So you know, do with that what you will right. Kind of confused, I did continue to water it and you know I noticed that our other trees and we have five trees on the property.

We have two in front and we have three in back I planted an apricot tree probably four or five years ago Well, no, three or four years ago I planted an apricot tree and it's doing fine. It doesn't get a lot of water but it's doing fine. We have a crepe myrtle and we have the tangerine tree in the back. We have a crepe myrtle and we have the tangerine tree in the back. So parts of it are still looking good. But this past year I've noticed that, whereas there's still new growth, there's still parts of the tree branches that are falling off and it's losing a lot more leaves. So last season it hardly bore any fruit, which made sense, because the year before it just went crazy, right. So now we're heading in towards the next fruit season. It does have fruit on it, but it just doesn't have that many leaves.

And where I've noticed you can look at something every day, right, no matter what it is, you can look at something every day. But then maybe, after you look at it every day, you don't really see the changes. I went out there about a month ago and I looked at it and I was like, wow, it has lost a lot of foliage and I really started to get concerned. Now I've read that tangerine trees have a shelf life, if you will, of about 50 years. I would guess that this tree is at least 50 years old.

I wasn't really sure if I called in a professional, anything could be done, and I thought about it and I tried contacting a few arborists. Our city has a website where they actually list arborists that they recommend certified arborists. Now there are arborists that go out and consult on trees, go out and consult on trees, and then there are arborists who actually also, in addition to consulting, actually do work on trees, like tree cutting, and I prefer to find somebody who is just a consultant, who doesn't necessarily make their living by cutting trees, right? So I found a couple people. I called a couple people and the first guy that I actually called he answered the phone and I told him what I was inquiring about and he said, well, I can come out, but tangerine trees really, once they start to go, there's not much that can be done, but I can still come out and charge you $300. And I thought, well, okay, that doesn't sound too promising, right? So I said, well, I'll think about it. I mean, I really had no idea what these things caused. Anyway. This other woman that I found online, I sent her a message on her portal. I thought maybe it's better to just send a message instead of calling somebody cold. Maybe you get a better reaction.

And at first I thought about it and I thought, you know, this is just a lot of extra effort for nothing. But as I thought about it more I realized that the tree is really important to us. It's been in our family for over 50 years probably over 50, I'm guessing at least 50 and it is important and it's been an investment. I asked my husband and of course he said you know, whatever you want to do, honey. So I scheduled her.

She came out and very nice young woman, of course she looked at the redwood tree in the front and remarked on it. And she came in the backyard and looked at the tangerine tree, examined the base of it, looked at the branches and the leaves and what have you, and took some pictures, did some. You know, I guess, pondering if you will. And then we sat down and talked and she was here for about an hour. Her fee was less than the other gentleman not a lot less, but it was less and what was interesting was that I always felt that I could water close to the base of the tree and that the tree would receive that moisture.

Near the base of the tree are just very fibrous and they don't pull up the water in that space that you have to water further out from the base of the tree, which I had never even thought about before, and she couldn't find any source of disease or pests source of disease or pests. So she felt like the problem with the tree is just one of not enough water and she explained to me how best to water the tree, which is, once a week, a deep watering further away, again further away from the base. I think where we're challenged in that is that the tree is in a very narrow space of dirt between the patio, which is concrete, and the driveway, which is concrete, and I don't really know how it's managed as well as it has all these years with that small space. But I'm willing to try and follow her tips for watering and see what happens. She said that if I do this watering schedule, keep up with it, that most likely I wouldn't see a change until next spring. So it's not. It's not an immediate turnaround, which is a little bit disappointing, but of course it takes the tree time to rebound, and she also showed me how the leaves fold in instead of being spread out, and she said that that's the tree conserving its resources, conserving its strength and its water and what have you.

So to me what's interesting is that I have such a green thumb in so many ways and with so many different plants, and I've taken care of I mean, I took care of the tangerine tree when we first had it. One of my mother's caregivers had told me that she turned on the hose very slowly and let it drip on the tree when she was here every week, and I tried to keep up with that schedule but I kind of failed with that. But I did water it. I have been watering it regularly, but maybe not as efficiently or as regularly as I should have, and I feel bad. I also feel like there's just something else that happened with it. I wonder if it's the ground squirrels that have been just going crazy and digging holes all over the neighborhood and if somehow they've gotten in there and they're eating the roots or something. I don't know, not that I want to place blame on roots or something. I don't know, not that I want to place blame on something else, because I don't but I have done so well with so many plants.

And then there's other plants and other spaces of the yard where I've tried so hard so many times with different things that I've purchased. Maybe it's a sunny spot and I've purchased a plant that is recommended for full sun. Time and time again, I've tried different things and nothing will survive. And it's not because I'm not watering every day, it's not because it got dried out, it's because it died. And as a as a gardener, as somebody who loves the garden and loves plants, and just it's so frustrating to to see that happen. So again and again, but I think that that the climate has changed so much over the years and things are so different now, so I will keep persevering with the watering of the tree.

And it was interesting because as we walked out towards the front, I walked her out to her car and we looked again at the Redwood and we talked a little bit more about it and you know I said that there's plenty of people that have come by and said that they would love to come and, you know, have me hire them to feed it, or, you know, feed it every quarter. And she said, oh, I'm sure they would. But she said it doesn't need to be fed, which made me feel better. And she said just remember that the same watering techniques go for the redwood tree as go for the tangerine tree, that it's not going to absorb water right at the base or within six feet of the base. It's going to absorb water from the lawn area, which I was like, oh wow, I hadn't really thought about that. It didn't immediately translate for me and it probably wouldn't have translated for me unless she had mentioned that wouldn't have translated for me unless she had mentioned that. So I was very appreciative of her advice and we'll see what happens.

But yeah, there's been times when I have deep watered the redwood tree, but I think I've done it too close to the base. I did catch on to that at one point where I felt like maybe I should be, because there's a cement planter, if you will, a cement and brick. It's more ornamental a circle that goes around the base of the tree and I would say it goes out maybe five or six feet from the base maybe closer to five feet, so it's a big circle, and usually what I do is turn the hose on, put it in the circle and let it go very slowly so it would deeply water. But she's right, it wasn't getting out to the lawn and so I started thinking that maybe I should be watering the lawn and the tree would pull up the water. So that's what I've done sometimes, even though I don't have much of a lawn, because it's a Southern California lawn and with the dryness and most of it's just crabgrass anyway. So I call it a SoCal lawn, because it's really just green when it rains and then, with the upcoming Halloween and Christmas decorations, it's not going to get consistently watered, so it's going to be brown, brown, brown brown. Anyway, that's what I know about arborists and I would say that it was a very positive experience in terms of the information I got and it'd be a really cool job for somebody to go around and look at trees and diagnose trees and talk to people, and you'd get to go around and meet a lot of new people and just look at their trees. And I mean, what better line of work would it be to look at trees all day right, because trees are good things. So I better go turn the hose on now, but that's all I've got for today.

Next week we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on and consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page Only Child Diaries or Facebook Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Wallace and these are the Only Child Diaries.