Seeing blue dots, red Xs, orange circles and purple bands on trees and wondering what they mean? Here's what we found out about those painted trees.

Q: My dad helped me plant a couple of young apple trees in my backyard last weekend and so far, so good. After we finished I said the only thing I had left to do was paint the trunks white. He looked ...

Answer: Have you ever noticed bark buckling off the tree trunk? I first noticed it in a mature mulberry tree in my yard in Las Cruces a few years ago. The bark on the west side of the trunk had ...

Q. I recently moved to Redding and everywhere I go I see tree trunks that look like they’ve been painted white. I even saw some that were painted a light blue. Can you tell me why folks do this? A.

After last week’s column on transplanting 8-year-old plum trees was published, City of Las Cruces Community Forester Jimmy Zabriskie contacted me about another important consideration: sunscald.

Summer sunscald happens on trees when bark gets too hot. This happens on young tree trunks or young branches of older trees. Bark gets so hot that cells die. Winter sunscald happens in colder weather ...