Plant health care

Southeast Michigan yards carry a lot of woody plants for their size. Maples were planted along streets, spruce were lined up for screening, and ash trees were lost to emerald ash borer or are still standing in poor condition. Plant health care at Stewards is the work of watching those plants through the year.

What the work is

A plant health conversation starts with what changed. A spruce that was thin last July. A crabapple that drops spotted leaves. A row of arborvitae with brown tips. A young tree with bark chewed at the snow line. Stewards looks at the plant in front of the house, not at a regional average, and talks through what a seasonal program can cover.

That program may include insects and mites, leaf and needle diseases that show up in this climate, and stress that is really about water, soil, salt, or a plant set too deep. Cultural points come up in the same conversation. Product choice and timing are made for the property. This site does not publish rates, product names, or a calendar to copy.

What shows up on properties here

Colorado blue spruce has been a difficult tree in southeast Michigan landscapes. Needlecast and canker diseases thin the lower canopy, and a hot July makes the decline easier to see. Replacing a dead spruce is a planting decision, which is outside this service. Deciding whether a spruce is still worth a program, or is mostly dead wood, belongs in the quote.

Emerald ash borer removed a generation of ash from Troy, Birmingham, and the cities around them. What is left is often a declining ash, or a replacement tree planted into clay and now competing with the lawn. Those are different problems.

Crabapples spot and drop leaves when apple scab is active. Lindens, roses, and grapes draw Japanese beetles in midsummer. Arborvitae and spruce pick up bagworms. Euonymus and magnolia pick up scale. Lindens and maples can drip honeydew onto walks and cars when aphids are heavy. In outbreak years, spongy moth caterpillars defoliate oaks in the woodier parts of Rochester Hills and Oakland Township. Pin oaks sometimes show yellow leaves with greener veins on the alkaline soils common in these suburbs.

Winter adds its own list. Boxwood and rhododendron burn in wind. Salt along Big Beaver, Woodward, and other major roads browns roadside evergreens. Voles tunnel under snow and girdle young trunks. Deer browse yews, arborvitae, and hostas where a yard meets woods. That is a regular condition in Bloomfield Hills, Rochester Hills, and Oakland Township, and a less constant one on a small Troy lot.

Through the year

Late winter and early spring are when winter injury, vole damage, and scale are easiest to see, before leaves hide the wood. Spring brings aphids, the first leaf spots, and late frost on new growth that is easy to mistake for disease. Summer is beetles, bagworms, mites on stressed evergreens, and the difference between a dry plant and a diseased one. Fall is for reading what the plant is taking into dormancy, including deer pressure as other food drops.

None of that is a schedule of applications. It is the shape of the year in this part of Michigan. One declining spruce in Troy is not the same visit as a long hedge and a wooded edge in Bloomfield Hills.

What to put in the quote request

Name the plants if you know them, or describe them. Say which part of the property, how long the symptom has been visible, and whether you want one plant looked at or a bed, a hedge, or the trees across the yard. Mention tight side yards, long drives, and deer if those are already part of the picture.

Heavy shade from these trees is often why a lawn is thin. That belongs with lawn fertilization and pesticide programs. Insects that have moved into the kitchen, or wasps in a soffit, belong with pest control. The work is based in Troy and the other communities on this list.