Today's tips are for putting your favorite big tree to bed for the winter. Water your large trees with your hose on drip, no sprinkler screwed on. Lay hose end at the tree base for an hour before you turn off your outside water. Being watered deeply one last time allows your big tree to head into winter hydrated and it will be better able to withstand that bitter, dry cold wind. It was the wind even more than the cold that damaged so many limbs and outright killed entire trees during the polar vortex. Cover roots with a medium depth of new mulch. And if you have not pruned yet hurry up. Pruning is a cut finger to your tree so it is best to do it as the tree heads into winter dormancy. You don't want the sap rising. November is best. The next best window to prune is mid Februay up to mid March before the sap begins to rise again for Spring. Also you need to be able to see what you are doing. It's easy now that trees are leafless and your smaller trees you can do yourself. Don't wack tops off straight across. Try to follow its natural shape which is actually oval like an egg. Don't just wack bottom limbs off either, eventually it will start looking like a bottle brush. Some trees will die from topping wrongly alone. Their DNA tells them a height they should grow. In fact, a tree never stops adding height as it matures. Anyway, stand back and eye your tree. It has a skeleton. See its major shape. Also it is better to cut out large extraneous sections in one fell swoop rather than torturing it by many small cuts. Think large area with strategic cuts. Fewer cuts win. Take out branches that are rubbing each other, bushy looking sections, and anything growing straight up. Also remove all suckers. That's all the treelings sprouting from the tree's base. If you are really worried, you can seal up larger open cuts with that tar stuff that comes in spray cans at Home Depot. Warning it is messy as hell and not really all that necessary if you are pruning in the bugless months.

The roots are what they are at this point. More water at Thanksgiving isn't going to do any good, and it isn't like there has been a drought. There is plenty of water in the soil. Soaking the roots from the base is a trick for newly planted small and decorative trees. The root systems of mature trees are about as wide as the crown and nearly as deep. Watering the base of such a tree is just a waste of perfectly good water.