ArborWISE by Carolina Tree Care
It’s time to get proactive about your tree and shrub care
You put a lot of time, effort, and money into your landscape. It finally looks as stunning as you pictured it, but how do you keep it that way?
Luckily for you, there’s a way you can protect your trees and shrubs and maintain the value and beauty they bring to your property.
ArborWISE is Carolina Tree Care’s proactive plant health care program for the Charlotte, Greensboro, and Raleigh/Durham, NC areas. The program includes preventative pest and fertilization treatments in an effort to stay ahead of the pest pressure curve and keep your trees and shrubs healthy and strong.
Helping you protect your investment, the responsible way
Environmental responsibility is important to us. We know that even though we may see these tree and shrub bugs as pests, insects play an important part in the maintenance of our ecosystem. That’s why our goal when treating your plants isn’t total eradication – just control.
That being said, your trees and shrubs may still experience some damage from pests. But with our treatments, that damage will be kept to a minimum.
Your ArborWISE benefits
Getting your trees and shrubs on our ArborWISE program will protect your investment, but the perks don’t stop there. Join ArborWISE to get:
- An inventory and treatment history of the trees and shrubs on your property, which you’ll be able to access via your Carolina Tree Care customer portal.
- A dedicated professional to monitor and treat your trees and shrubs throughout the year. That means we can often alert you to plant health care issues before they become too serious and/or difficult to correct.
- Access to pollinator-friendly and EPA reduced risk treatments that preserve more beneficial insects and have lower environmental and human health risks compared to traditional foliar insecticides.
Depending on your needs and budget, we offer a four-visit program and a five-visit program. Find out what’s included in each visit below!
Four-visit program | Five-visit program | |
Jan./Feb. Horticultural Oil Treatment | X | X |
April/May Horticultural Oil + IGR Treatment | X | X |
April/May Fertilization | X | |
July/August Inspection & Treatment | X | X |
Oct./Nov. Fertilization | X | X |
Jan./Feb. Horticultural Oil Treatment
During your first visit, we’ll apply horticultural oil via foliar spray to kill off and prevent pests. Horticultural oil works by blocking the air holes, or spiracles, that insects use to breathe. That causes the insects to die by asphyxiation. Horticultural oil can also decrease the hatching success of insect egg masses by blocking their oxygen intake.
Researchers have found that horticultural oil can be an egg-laying deterrent, too.
This product is an excellent option for reducing mite, scale, mealybug, psyllid, whitefly, aphid, caterpillar, plant bug, leafhopper, and adelgid populations.
With horticultural oil, we can get ahead of the pest pressure curve early in the year. That way, your trees and shrubs can move into the growing season on the right foot.
Once applied, control typically begins within one to two days.
Please note that our foliar spray coverage is height limited to 25 feet.
April/May Horticultural Oil + IGR Treatment
During your spring visit, we’ll apply horticultural oil and insect growth regulator (IGR) treatments.
IGR treatments stop insects from reaching maturity by interfering with their molting process. As an insect grows, it creates a new exoskeleton inside of its old one. Once the insect sheds the old exoskeleton, the new one takes its place, growing larger and hardening. IGR treatments disrupt this process so that the insects can’t mature.
Once applied, control begins within one to two days. The effects last three to four weeks.
April/May Fertilization*
Because of issues like soil compaction, most urban landscapes are nutrient deficient. During this visit, we’ll apply a soil-injected fertilizer to deliver nutrients to the roots of your trees and shrubs. That way, your trees and shrubs will have the nutrients they need to thrive.
We’ll focus on delivering increased nitrogen to your plants, which will promote more above-ground growth, flowering, and fruiting.
*This service only comes with the five-visit program.
July/August Inspection & Treatment
During this visit, we’ll inspect your trees and shrubs for heat stress, pests, and diseases.
Summer is a stressful time to be a tree or shrub. Hot and dry weather conditions can cause a plant to use up or lose water a lot faster than it can be replaced, which leads to heat stress. A pale, dull appearance, wilting, and reduced growth are all telltale signs of heat stress.
Heat stress can also make your trees and shrubs more susceptible to diseases and pests like warm season mites and caterpillars. That’s why this visit includes up to $100 worth of any applicable pesticidal treatment or $100 worth of a granular phosphonate treatment that promotes general plant health and disease resistance.
Oct./Nov. Fertilization
Depending on the species, plants typically need 16-19 essential elements (nutrients) to grow and thrive. But since most urban landscapes are nutrient deficient, some trees and shrubs may need some extra TLC. That’s why we offer a fall fertilization treatment.
While spring fertilization focuses on nitrogen, we’ll apply phosphorous and potassium to your soil during the fall fertilization. This will help promote increased root growth.
Need to add more plant health care services to your program? No problem!
You can add disease (fungicidal) treatments to your program whenever you need to. If you have crape myrtles in your yard, you may want to add fungicidal foliar spray treatments to your spring visit to keep those pesky dark spots to a minimum.
Partner with a company that cares as much about your trees and shrubs as you do
Now is a great time to enroll in our ArborWISE program. Call us today at 704-788-8733 to get started.
Want more information about ArborWISE? Check out this blog post: Are You Signed Up for ArborWISE Yet?