Ron checks in with The Arbor Doc 1/6/2024

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Episode Transcript

(00:07):
Good morning everybody. Welcome back,and I'm Ron Wilson. You're in the
garden and if you'd like to joinus, love to have you. Here
is our number, it's seven fournine fifty five hundred. You can also
het a pound five fifty on thatat and t phone eat away. You're
gonna wind up right here in ourstudios and ken with the DURINGO kid that's
Danny Gleeson is in the house.He'll take your calls, get your lined
up. We'll do our best offanswer to those gardening questions for you.
And if you've got a tip you'dlike to share, we'd love to hear

(00:29):
from you. Seven four nine fiftyfive hundred Here at fifty five krc DE
talk station. Our toll free numbersame as it is every weekend eight hundred
eight two three eight two five five. Good morning. I am Ron Wilson,
your personal yard boy, talking aboutyard ning. And as I promise,
it's time for a bifurcation of segments. It's time for weather. It's

(00:50):
the weather. It's time for inthe Trees, starring the true Seer of
Sears, Prognosticate Tor Prognosticate Tours,Weather Predictory, Extraordinary have been doing it
since he was five or maybe earlier. He's the man who inspired the saying
trees are good. Check out thewebsite trees are Good dot org. He
is a amateur meteorologist, I sboard, certified Master Arbist and registered consulting

(01:11):
arbist Ladies and gentlemen. Is websitearbor doctor dot com. The arbor Doctor
himself, mister Ronrothis good morning,sir. Yes, that is all that
applause for me, or for thefact that just about five minutes ago it
started snowing outside. Well that's myWe can't see out the windows here.

(01:33):
Well I can see that the blacktopis wet, but that's about all we
can see. Yeah, it wasraining here. Actually it started out as
a little bit of a mix,then changed the rain and it was just
raining here to maybe a quarter tillseven, and then it turned and started
to mix with snow, and byseven o'clock it was snowing. So so

(01:53):
yes, I mean not a blizzard. It's very wet flakes, but they're
actually starting to accumulate. So soyou have the snowboard out. Snowboard is
deployed, is deployed, and we'reseeing flakes on it. Yeah, there's
apparently flakes sitting here talking to youin the sun too. Ah, you're
such a funny man, Ron Roth. This is with us this morning.

(02:15):
We're gonna talk weather. We're alsogot to we've got some questions about trees
as well. We're gonna pick hisbrain on both of them. By the
way, you know, you liketo look across the country. I get
I go to extension services for likeNebraska and Missouri and North Carolina that just
to get an update of what's goingon around us. And uh, looking
at Nebraska's on twelve, twenty eight, twenty three on their drought monitor,

(02:42):
Holy Schmoli's they're really in a drought, yespecially eastern southeastern Nebraska, A big
part of Nebraska, the central andwestern parts not in drought, right,
have a pretty pretty severe drought.And it's like eastern Nebraska extending into virtually
all of Iowa. Yeah, it'slike the right at right angle right through

(03:04):
the middle of the state, andeverything to the right of that is everything
from abnormally to exceptional drought, right, and that that actually extends from that
area, like I said, throughIowa down into Missouri east into southern Illinois.
A good part of Indiana, extremewestern Ohio, Kentucky, and then

(03:25):
really really extreme to exceptional drought fromTennessee southwest to extreme southeast Texas, including
a good part of Louisiana and Mississippi. So it's really that that is part
of a much larger area of droughtwhich actually currently extends into the Cincinnati area,

(03:46):
although just barely into the Cincinnati area. I'm on the west side of
Cincinnati, and definitely extends into mylocation, but you get just the east
side of town and east of Cincinnati, and you quickly go out of drought.
A good part of Ohio, centraland eastern Ohio is generally, you
know, fairly good. But westernOhio, extreme southern Ohio is in drought

(04:12):
right now. That's about the changefor a lot of us. And what
I mean when you say it's aboutto change because we've got a lot of
rain coming through. We have alot of rain coming through starts today and
not necessarily in those areas. Butthere's a storm system that's and we've been
talking about this for months this winter. We were expecting a storm track that

(04:38):
would go through the southern United Statesand up the Eastern Unit, up the
East coast, and it was expectedto kind of miss the Ohio Valley.
Well right now that doesn't look likethe case, at least for the next
couple of weeks. This particular stormis more of an east coast Appalachian type
storm with a lot of winter weatheradvisories in winter storm mornings along the Appalachians

(05:00):
and into New England. But thena couple of days after that Tuesday,
there's going to be a huge stormsystem coming up will probably generate some severe
weather in the southeast, copious quantitiesof rain, and a lot of those
drought areas, with the exception ofIowa and Nebraska, it's probably going to

(05:20):
slide southeast of those areas, butjust about all the other areas that I
mentioned are going to get at leastan inch of rain, if not more
from this storm. Some areas couldget several inches of rain. And then
there's another storm behind that next weekendwhich could produce an inch to two inches
of additional rainfall in those areas withpossibly more severe weather. And these storms

(05:46):
are going to be progressively pulling downmore and more cold air, another thing
that we've talked about for months now, and it's going to be getting progressively
colder in the western and central UnitedStates, and with each passing storm that's
going to be moving further and furthereast, So these storms are going to
be getting more and more wintry.Even the Tuesday storm could produce massive amounts

(06:10):
of snow and even blizzard conditions moreout in parts of the Eastern Plains and
maybe up into the Chicago area.And then the storm after that again looks
like it's going to be a blockbustersnowstorm for some places in the central and
maybe up into the Great Lakes area. So, you know, we've been
talking about this for a long timeand it all depends on the track.

(06:32):
You know, people ask me,what's it going to do in Cincinnati.
Well, the current storm is basicallymainly going to miss Cincinnati to the east
in the next from snow standpoint,and the next two storms are going to
kind of miss to the west,it looks like right now. But you
know, we're gonna get a lotof rain out of it. And this
precipitate uptick in precipitation looks like it'sgoing to continue for at least the next

(06:56):
couple of weeks. It doesn't meanit's going to wipe out drought for everybody,
but it's certainly going to put amajor dent in it for a lot
of people. So some very goodnews in that respect for people who have
been missing winter. It looks like, like me, it's going to be
getting quite a bit colder, andat some point, as it gets progressively

(07:16):
colder, we could get into apretty significant arctic blast for a week or
two before this pattern relaxes. Sowow, maybe not. You know,
last three year was strange because itwas such a flash freeze type thing where
it was warm and then it gotsuper cold for a few days and then
it got warm again. This isgoing to be more of what we normally

(07:40):
would get from a standpoint of usworking into it over the course of several
storm systems. So it's not goingto be that had flash cold like we
had necessarily last year. But wecould get, you know, ultimately cold
air that could be not too farfrom what we got last year, at
least in some areas. Would thatbe copious amounts of cold air with the

(08:03):
copious amounts of rain rainfall? Yes, I had to write down maybe even
a corner kopia that even a cornerit could be a mix of all of
those things right, Yes, Andit looks like there is going to be
a lot of mixed with a lotof this precipitation in our area today.
It looks like, you know,everything but hail, may be some sleet,
some rain, some snow, nothuge amounts of any of those in

(08:28):
Cincinnati proper, but enough to remindus that it's winter. But this next
storm is going to produce a lotof rain, which is so much needed.
I actually watched a webinar this weekfrom the Kentucky i think the Kentucky
Water Resources, and there's one cityin one town in Kentucky that actually isn't

(08:52):
a drought emergency right now. Thereservoirs are extremely low, and several other
communities that are that have water advisoriesand just have you know, very low
stream flow. The Mississippi River forthe second year in a row, is
very very low levels. It's interestingwhen you look at some of the river
gauges in the Mississippi River, theyactually are showing negative river stages, which

(09:18):
I wondered about that when I firsthow do you have a negative river stage?
Well, what it is is becausethe river bottom is uneven that they
have kind of a baseline a zero. There's still some water there, but
you know, they have kind ofa baseline of zero, and several locations
it's actually below that baseline. Sothe second year in a row too,

(09:41):
But this this series of weather systemsshould help with that too. Talking with
Ron Roth this of course he's thearbor dock, which means tree doctor,
but he's also a great hobby meteorologistas well, and that does a great
job. Go to his website.Check it out's arbordoctor dot com. It's
a wonderful website. I get peopleasking them all the time, what is
that guy's website again? What isthe website against? Arbordoctor dot com.

(10:03):
Great information both for the weather andfor plant healthcare as well. Be sure
and check it out. We'll takea quick break. We come back.
We'll get a little recap of twentytwenty three. So you know, if
we're way behind a rainfall, doesall this that's coming along, does that
make up for everything when it comesto plant health? I don't know.
We're also going to ask Ron aboutI see a lot of confusion out there

(10:24):
right now on planting trees that aregrafted. You know, they're grafted and
you see this a graft and thenthere's a trunk below that, and then
there's the roots. Where do youplant that with the graft? Does it
graft go at the ground? Doesit go up higher? Do you plant
it where the roots are coming out? We'll find out more from the arbor
doc Ron Rothis here in the gardenwith Ron Wilson. Landscaping made easier with

(10:45):
your personal yard boy. He's inthe garden and he's Ron Wilson Glenn Beck
breaking down the top stories and howit impacts your life Monday morning at nine
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(13:22):
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co dot UK dot EEDU. Welcomeback. You're in the garden with Ron

(13:43):
Wilson. I'm fumbling through all ofthese things this morning talking with Ron Roth.
This our hobby meteorologist, amateur meteorologistand the certified arborist sharing a corncopia
of copious information with us this morningabout weather and plant health. So looking
back at twenty twenty three, let'sjust take our area, for instance,
we wound up how were we onon rainfall averages for the year, Very

(14:09):
dry, specifically in the Cincinnati areaand points south and west. I was
in my location close to seven inchesbelow normal for the year. Most of
that deficit was in the fall.So as a matter of fact, we
had really good rain in March,and we had some droughty periods in May

(14:33):
and June, and it kind offluctuated back and forth, but we really
really dried out when we got intothe fall, and most of that deficit
that we had, matter of fact, I think it was pretty close to
the long term average around Labor Dayweekend, So most of that seven close
to seven inch deficit was was afterLabor Day, which you know, second

(14:58):
year in a row. We hada dry fall, which is not good.
In Kentucky, their preliminary data isshowing that this may be the driest
summer or driest year, I'm sorry, since two thousand and seven, So
a very very dry year in muchof Kentucky and many of those areas that

(15:18):
we're discussing just before, in theMississippi Valley up into Iowa, Nebraska,
those areas. New England had oneof the wettest years that they've ever had.
It's been exceptionally wet. They hadsignificant flooding over the summer in parts

(15:41):
of Vermont and New Hampshire. Soit was kind of a stuck weather pattern
where you're either in the dry areaor in a case of New England,
in the very very wet area.So you know, we look back,
so we say, okay, twentytwenty three were down seven inches of rainfall
for the year. Now you're saying, we get a copious amount of rainfall
in January. Seven inches of rainfallin January. Does that make everything good?

(16:03):
Oh? Yeah, everything will befine. Now that problem. Come
on, people, hear you saythat rat said everything is good? Yeah?
No, no, no, whathappens is I mean, you get
plants that are damaged by the drought. It's just kind of like you know,
you go somewhere and you get frostbite. Well, okay, you warm
up, but that skin is stilldamaged. A plant is stressed by drought,

(16:30):
and you can either you can evenget you know, tissue damage.
A plant can can die or orget significantly stressed. And yes, we
improve the soil moisture conditions, butbut that plant is still damaged, and
and so it doesn't solve all ourproblems. All that really does is remoisten

(16:52):
the soil profile, which is isgood going forward. But in many cases
you know from many of these plantsthat the damage has already done. I
mean, we had a lot ofrain last year in March. A ton
of rain in March put us wellabove average for the year at that point.
But we had an extremely dry falland we had that you know,

(17:14):
sharp drop and temperature at Christmas,and so we saw you know, damage
an awful lot of plants. Youknow, the boxwoods really come to mind,
but quite a few evergreens. Isaw Norway spruces that died, Yeah,
burning bush, so so yeah.I mean, it fixes the moisture

(17:36):
situation and soil profile. But ifthe plants were killed by a drought or
severely damaged by drought, it doesn'tmagically fix that. It just it just
helps the you know, with withthe situation going forward. That's why you
know, we we talked so oftenabout watering during dry It's a bridge to

(18:02):
get us from the one period wherewe have adequate rainfall to the next period
that we're having adequate rainfall. Becauseif you're not doing it, you know,
people say, well, I can'tafford the water well, can you
afford to replace a twenty foot Norwayspruce and you know, a hedge of
burning bush and whatever else you're goingto need to replace that they die from

(18:23):
drought stress. I mean, it'skind of like you pay me now,
you pay me later. Either waythey're going to pay you exactly. Yep.
I get it. Talking with Ronrothis this website harbordoctor dot com,
good points. I really appreciate it. We got about a minute ago and
I wanted to talk to you moreabout this, but I realized over the
last month or so, I've gottenseveral emails from folks that we have been

(18:44):
planting trees, and you know,there are a lot of trees that,
especially fruit trees and that that youbuy today, are grafted onto another rootstock,
and sometimes that graph where it's graftedin the roofs below can have a
you know, that graph can betwelve inches or that's bottom rootstock, a
twelve inch trunk before you start tosee roots come out. And back in
the old days, it used tobe a you know, we'll plant it

(19:06):
up to just below the graft.And you know, there's some misconceptions out
there as far as how deep dowe plant this grafted tree. Yeah,
and it's not just fruit trees.A lot of our I'm saying, but
you see, yeah, you seeit a lot. I'm obviously fruit trees,
but most of you look at theornamental trees and a lot of shade
trees, they're all grafted as well. Right, the root flare should be

(19:29):
at the surface, and the rootflare can be several inches below that graft.
So and in the graft, youknow, is kind of a bulge
in the in the stem and canappear to be a little bit of a
root flare when you look at it, but if you dig down in the
in the root ball, you'll findthe root flare. The root flare should
be at the surface. And ifthe root flare is buried several inches deep,

(19:52):
that tree is going to be setup for major problems and maybe even
death. So if you buy atree and let's say from the top of
the part soil in the container towhere it's grafted is eight inches and then
there's roots right right at that pointat the top of the soil, that's
where you plant it. You don'tplant it any deeper than that. You
don't go to the graft. Youplant it right where that root flare is

(20:12):
coming out. Again, the oldshow me the root flare. Yeah,
you need to excavate the root ballat planting time. There's no way to
know where that root flare is unlessyou do a little bit of excavation at
planting time. You got it.Thank you for all of the copious amount
of information from your cone, yourcopiaof information. We've gone back to a

(20:33):
range snow next year, so it'sbe fun to watch this leak. Harbordoctor
dot com is his website. Ronrotis always appreciated. Coming up next,
Diane Blazing from the National Garden Bureau. Here in the garden with Ron Wilson.
Help so the do it yourself gardenerat one eight hundred eight two three
talk You're in the garden with RonWilson. This is fifty five KARC and

(20:59):
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(21:21):
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