Seasonal Checklists for Tree & Shrub Health in Idaho Falls

Chances are, your calendar is already pretty packed.

Can you squeeze in tree and shrub fertilizing? Got time for dormant pruning? Ready to pencil in watching for aphids? (Sounds exciting, right?)

If this sounds like a stretch for your busy schedule, a good plant health care program can come to the rescue.

Jump to Section

• Spring Plant Care: Fertilization & Early Pest Control

• Summer Plant Care: Light Pruning & Pest Monitoring

• Fall Tree & Shrub Care: More Fertilization & Insulating Late Mulch

• Winter Plant Care in Idaho Falls: Dormant Pruning, Foliar Spray & Snow Protection

• Plant Health Care Programs for Your Idaho Falls Landscape: Trust Outback 

What care do your trees and shrubs need in each season in Idaho Falls? Fertilizing in spring and fall. Aphid control in spring. Watering and light pruning in summer. Dormant pruning in winter, as well as protection from cold wind and hungry critters.

Let’s learn more about your Idaho Falls tree & shrub care calendar.

Spring Plant Care: Fertilization & Early Pest Control

Your trees and shrubs are waking up after a long winter, so your tree and shrub care calendar starts to get busy:

Spring Fertilizing

What is the best timing for fertilizing trees or shrubs in Idaho Falls? It starts in spring.

Regular fertilizing is extra important for your trees and shrubs here in Idaho. Our high-alkaline often locks up the minerals your plants need to stay green.

Also, remember this: out in the forest, trees have plenty of nutritious decaying organic matter to feast on. You scoop all of that up during lawn clean-up, leaving just grass.

Without enough food, the trees and shrubs in your Idaho Falls landscape can’t thrive, and they become an easy target for disease and insect pests.

Spring gives them a much-needed boost that improves both their health and appearance.

Nitrogen is the key, so look for a high-nitrogen fertilizer with NPK figures like 4-1-1, 3-1-1 or 3-1-2.

Aphid Control

If it’s spring, it’s time to prevent aphids. The tiny destructive pests are the most common insects found on Idaho trees and shrubs.

They’re nearly invisible to the naked eye, so you won’t notice them on your trees and shrubs. But when they gather in swarms to feast on your landscaping, their feeding can do serious damage.

Aphids multiply quickly, so it’s crucial to get them under control before they start reproducing. Plant health care pros target them in spring as part of Idaho Falls tree and shrub health care options, with a one-two punch of systemic injections plus foliar treatments.

Systemic insecticides injected into your trees in the spring kill aphids from within, when they start to feed. Spray treatments three times a year, starting in spring, zap any bugs crawling on your shrubs and trees. The foliage spray has a residual effect that lasts 30 days, deterring hungry invaders.

Dormant Oil Treatment

Spring is the time to attack bugs before they hatch.

Dormant oil, also called horticultural oil, is a great tool for killing the damaging insects that lay eggs on your trees and shrubs.

Dormant oil spray is a highly refined petroleum product that suffocates and kills insects and their eggs on your Idaho trees and shrubs.

Plant health care technicians apply the oil spray in early spring while your trees and shrubs are still dormant. It’s a great addition to your tree and shrub care calendar.

Summer Plant Care: Light Pruning & Pest Monitoring

Summer tree and shrub care in Idaho Falls focuses on deep, infrequent watering to keep them hydrated during heat and drought. A couple of other key tasks are on the tree and shrub care calendar, too:

Watch for Destructive Insects

It doesn’t take long for hungry bugs to do real damage to your trees and shrubs. But when pros advise you to “keep an eye out” for these landscape villains, what should you be looking for, exactly?

What are the signs of tree and shrub damage from insects?

• Curled, brown or yellow leaves

• Sticky goo or black soot

• Holes in the bark

• Squiggly trails in the leaves

• Little piles of sawdust at the base of the tree

Tree and shrub health care program technicians will identify the type of bugs attacking your shrub or tree. Then they’ll often spray leaves with insecticide to kill the bugs.

Tree injections are an effective treatment for your tree and shrub care calendar, too.

They treat insects and diseases by delivering treatment directly into the tree trunk, which is quickly taken up by the vascular system and distributed throughout the tree.

Light Summer Pruning

If you know anything about pruning trees and shrubs, you know winter is the best time to tackle this task here in Idaho Falls, when there’s less of a chance of those fresh cuts inviting damaging insects or disease.

But summer is a great time for light pruning, including removing damage from spring or summer storms.

Some light summer pruning can also let more sunlight and air circulation into a tree canopy that needs it.

“Light pruning” is the key here. You don’t want to take more than 10 percent or so off during a tree’s active growing season.

A warning for pruning: many trees and shrubs that produce flowers in the spring form their flower buds on new growth in the summer. Don’t prune off those important buds, or you won’t have beautiful flowers in the spring. You’ll be really annoyed.

When you can, save the serious pruning for fall, when potential damage is limited.

Fall Tree & Shrub Care: More Fertilization & Insulating Late Mulch

Just because the growing season is over doesn’t mean you can forget about your trees and shrubs. There are still a few tasks to tackle:

Fall Fertilizing

Wait, you just fed your trees and shrubs in the spring. Are they hungry again?

That’s right. Think of them as leafy teenagers lurking out there in your yard, always interested in food.

Plus, fall fertilizing gives your trees and shrubs a boost in different ways than spring feeding:

1. Root Boost

In the spring, your Idaho trees and shrubs absorb fertilizer and use it to produce new leaf growth. But in the fall, it’s all about the roots. Roots take those beneficial nutrients and use them to thrive.

2. Post-Summer Hunger

Your trees and shrubs have been busy growing all summer. That’s hard work. They’ve used up a lot of nutrients. Fall is a great time to replace them.

3. Love Fall Color?

If you’re looking forward to those stunning golden and orange leaves, give your trees and shrubs the food they need to create them.

Make sure fall fertilizer is on your tree and shrub care calendar.

Fall fertilizing gives trees and shrubs important nutrients going into winter, plus some reserves to help them emerge healthy in the spring.

Deep Root Fertilization

Fall is a great time for deep-root fertilizer as part of your Idaho Falls plant health care program. This extra-deep feeding gives your trees a nutritional boost after the stress of summer and preps them for the long winter ahead.

How does it work?

Deep-root fertilization injects nutrients directly into the soil, rather than spreading them on the surface.

By injecting fertilizer with a high-pressure wand, nutrients can reach the deepest tree roots quickly, feeding your tree immediately from the roots up.

Then, over time, the nutrients make their way to the rest of your tree, making it healthier and more vibrant.

Add an Insulating Layer of Mulch to Protect Roots

Maybe you think of mulch as a spring thing, and it is. But mulch is a great addition to your fall tree and shrub care calendar, too.

Add about four inches of bark mulch around the bases of your shrubs and trees for a layer of toasty insulation. This will help the soil stay frozen, preventing heaving during freeze-thaw cycles.

Winter Plant Care in Idaho Falls: Dormant Pruning, Foliar Spray & Snow Protection 

Don’t trees and shrubs go dormant during Idaho winters? Do you really need plant health care programs when the ground is frozen?

Your trees and shrubs need a few key things late in the year, even as the snow flies:

Winter Dormant Pruning

Here in Idaho Falls, winter is the best time to prune your trees and shrubs.

They’re dormant during the winter, which means you’ll do less damage than if you tackle this task during their active growing months.

There are other good reasons for adding pruning to your winter tree and shrub care calendar, too:

You Can See What You’re Doing

There are no leaves now on your deciduous trees and shrubs, so you get a clear view of each branch and what it needs.

Winter Pruning Prevents Disaster

Removing diseased, broken or dying branches during the dormant winter season means they won’t tumble down later, causing possible injury and property damage.

Spray to Protect Susceptible Evergreens

Your Idaho evergreens are susceptible to winter burn, which happens when intense winter sun and wind cause leaves to lose water, but the frozen or dry ground prevents the roots from absorbing enough water to replenish the loss.

It’s a common issue for evergreen plants like boxwoods, junipers, cedars and more.

How can you prevent winter burn? Anti-desiccant spray as part of your Idaho Falls plant health care program helps protect those tender leaves.

The spray is a liquid-based, organic product that dries to form a transparent, waxy film on the plant's foliage. The protective film slows water evaporation from leaves and helps protect plants from drying out due to winter winds, cold, and dry air.

Spray boxwood and other broadleaf evergreens like azaleas, rhododendrons, and hollies in late fall or early winter to prevent winter burn.

Protect Evergreens from Winter Wind

Evergreens seem pretty sturdy, but if they’re in windy, exposed areas, consider building a windbreak to protect them from drying winter wind.

You can also wrap shrubs in burlap to keep their needles healthy. Wrapping them also helps protect them from damage from road salt sprayed by passing plows.

Protect Trees and Shrubs from Hungry Wildlife

Winter is tough on Idaho wildlife, which have to forage through snow for food. The tasty bark of your trees and shrubs is a real treat.

Protect shrubs by wrapping them with netting to keep branches close to the trunk. That makes tasty, tender branches harder to access.

Plant health care programs in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, often include wrapping trees with welded-wire fencing in winter to prevent large game animals from feeding on the bark.

Plant Health Care Programs for Your Idaho Falls Yard: Trust Outback

Is your tree and shrub care calendar suddenly busier than you thought?

Why not leave it to the pros?

Experts from Lawn Buddies, an Outback Landscape partner company, will show up at exactly the right times of year to handle all your tree and shrub applications, through all four seasons.

Do you need to do plant health care every year? If you want the healthiest trees and shrubs, yes.

Consistent annual plant health care will keep your trees and shrubs fertilized, help prevent damage from invasive pests and diseases, handle crucial pruning and protect them from winter damage.

Need help with Idaho Falls tree and shrub health care? Give us a call.

Located in Idaho Falls, Idaho, we serve residential and commercial properties in Idaho Falls, Rexburg and Pocatello, Idaho, as well as Bonneville, Madison and Bannock counties and Jackson Hole, WY. Contact Outback Landscape at 208-656-3220, or fill out the contact form to schedule an onsite consultation. We’d love to hear from you.