As we have mentioned before some of our favorite flowering and fruiting trees here in the Northland are members of the Rose family…..Anything “Prunus” , the plums, pears, apricots, and cherries, and “Malus” , the apples and crabapples. Add to this list the Mountain Ashes, Sorbus, and the Hawthorns, Crataegus.
There are a number of shrubs in the Rose family as well, cotoneaster and ninebark, for example, but their value in the garden rarely rises that of losing a beautiful tree to the dread disease, “Fireblight”. They are susceptible but not that common in the population.
Fireblight is a bacterial disease and is distinguished by a hooking of ends of twigs and a blackening of that foliage. Generally, it needs wind and rain to move the bacteria from infected tree nearby. If you are fairly certain there is no Fireblight in your neighborhood, I still would recommend that if your Rose family trees need pruning, mid February to mid March is by far the best time.
Fireblight is not known to infect nonRose family plants.
If you do have a tree already infected, it might be salvageable by applying a bactericide. Click here for further information: http://www.ncw.wsu.edu/treefruit/fireblight/control.htm
This year, primarily due to the heavy and massive snow storm of November 13, 2010, many of your understory trees including your conifers might have been damaged. Don’t automatically cut the tree out. Call Masterpiece at 952-933-5777 and schedule our artistic pruning skills to restore character to your understory trees, whether of the Rose family or not.