Many many times every week redditors recommend other redditors with struggling trees to scratch the bark of the tree. I am also guilty. How much sense does it make?
Our fellow redditor Jelle who goes under the name u/growing_bonsai and on youtuber as https://www.youtube.com/c/GrowingBonsai wrote an article about this a few years ago.
The article takes just a few minutes to read but the main take aways are:
- It can only confirm a dead tree
- Seeing green does not mean much
- Scratching can create new problems.
- Other signs to look for
TL;DR stop scratching bark
by series_of_derps
4 Comments
Good to know, thanks for sharing.
Sorry I am new here, and only have about 25 years of experience. What is the supposed purpose of scratching a tree’s bark? Never heard of such a thing. I didnt read the article, but will.
I agree with it not being the best indicator of “tree status”. I reluctantly threw out an amur maple of mine yesterday because the scratch test was green, but there were other indicators it was dead. The branches changed color and snapped easily, the base of the trunk appeared shriveled, and there were no signs of buds swelling even though it’s been super warm outside.
I could have waited it out to see if it was still alive, but sometimes trees will still scratch green for weeks before turning brown. Not worth the wait in my opinion and I already replaced it by getting another tree.
IMO if your tree gets to the point where you can’t tell if its alive its not worth keeping it around.