Compton Tree Works

Home
United States
Burney, CA
Compton Tree Works

Originally from Colorado, I moved to Northern California to work in the incredible forests here.

10/04/2016

Planting For Longevity

When choosing a tree for their landscape, homeowners often pick a fast growing tree that will quickly fill a space and provide shade. The downside is that these trees are usually short lived and will just leave a hole in the landscape again when they die. One alternative if there is room, is to plant both the fast growing tree and a slower longer lived tree to the south of it, (so that it will not be shaded out by the faster growing tree). Here you can see where a home owner planted a Lombardy Poplar. This is a fast growing tree that has since died, and has now left a hole in the landscape. This hole will eventually be filled by the long lived London planetree that was planting in its place. Had both of these trees been planted 15 years ago, the Poplar would have still filled the space while the planetrees slowly established itself. And when the Poplar died, it would have been removed, leaving the space for the planetree to fill.

06/26/2016

Time To Thin Out Your Fruit Crops

Apples, some pears, stone fruits (peaches, nectarines,plums), and grapes will usually produce more fruit than the plant can support, and honestly, more than the average home owner will use. By thinning out the fruit, you can increase the size, improve the flavor, and shorten the time needed by the fruit to ripen. It will also save your trees branches from the possibility of being broken from an overloaded fruit crop. On most trees, choose the largest, healthiest fruit in the cluster, and remove the rest, leaving one apple, peach, pear, etc. per cluster. (see below) Thinning grapes can be more complicated, but a good rule of thumb is to leave one cluster for every 16 to 20 leaves. Try different ratios on your vines until you find what works best for your plant.

05/16/2016

Capturing A Honey Bee Swarm

This is the time of the year when honey bee hives will be splitting and trying to establish new colonies. If you have a swarm show up and don't know what to do with it, please give me a call. I would be more than happy to come and give them a good home in my bee yard.

04/01/2016

The window for grafting fruit trees this spring is closing quickly. I still have some scion wood left for apple and pear trees if anybody need some.

02/09/2016

Espalier Training An Apple Tree

Often people want to have a fruit tree somewhere on their property, but have limited room. This is an option that is actually a lot simpler than it looks. This is a grafted three in one apple (Granny Smith, Red Delicious, and Gala) that has been planted next to the southern side of a home. Only the branches growing in a singular plane are left, anything growing towards or away from the wall is pruned off. Training wires were attached to the walls before to help make the branching more uniform. There are many different patterns you can use, and this one tree will make an abundance of fruit. Having the tree next to the house will also provide some protection to freezing damage to the fruit, as heat is radiated off of the house at night.

01/25/2016

It's time to prune your grapes!

Late winter is the time of the year to clean up your vines. It's nice to have a reason this time of the year to get out of the house, and do something in the yard. Most home owners are afraid of over pruning, and don't clean the vines up enough. The goal for good fruit production and keeping the vines healthy is to only leave a couple of the heaviest vines, (the cordons), lined out along your fence or training system. Then cut back all the small branches along the cordon, leaving 2 or 3 buds on each branch. Each of these buds on these one year old nubbed off branches will produce the leaves and fruit next season.

12/30/2015

A dead branch over a homeowners back porch and storage shed that had him worried. I set a pulley and line in the tree next to it, attached the line to the dead branch, cut it, and slowly lowered it to the ground.

12/06/2015

Even though it is a little late to be doing so, remember that any saplings that you might have planted in the last couple of years will need to be protected from sunscald through the winter months. Although there are other ways, tree wrap is the most common way to protect them. The rule of thumb is that until the trees are old enough that their bark begins to furrow, (get bumpy), they need to be protected during the months when there is a chance of freezing. Protect them up to their first branch so that they wont crack.

11/27/2015

My prototype (Bee Box 1) is now complete and seems to have turned out well. I'll spend the New Years season building a couple hundred more, and should have nuc hives ready to bring to small land owners to help pollinate there hobby orchards by next spring.

Address

Burney, CA
96013

Telephone

530 945 1895

Website

http://comptontreeworks.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Compton Tree Works posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Compton Tree Works:

Shortcuts

Want your business to be the top-listed Contractor in Burney?