Landscape Services

Organic Plant Healthcare

The Davey Tree Expert Company is proud to offer organic plant healthcare as one of its many residential landscape services.

Our program consists of six timely applications completed at six- to eight-week intervals that target specific problems for that time of the year. The program can be tailored to fit your landscape needs and will use a variety of techniques and materials to get the desired results.

Compost Tea

The main benefit from applications of compost tea is the increased microbial population levels on the leaf and in the soil. Applied to the soil, the tea helps make nutrients in the soil more available, thus reducing fertilizer applications, detoxify the soil and water, making it easier for the plants to grow. It can also help build soil structure, creating more space where water and air can reach the roots.

Compost Tea Programs

We have two compost tea programs that will help maintain valuable landscapes with reduced treatments of fertilizers and pesticides. The compost tea has several beneficial attributes and to maintain the beneficial microbe population levels repeated applications are necessary. Factors that can negatively affect compost tea microbes are:

• Excessive rain water, which can wash tea from the leaf surface
• Sunlight, which will eventually break down the microbes
• Chlorinated water used to water turf and landscape trees and shrubs, which can kill off microbes
• Quick-release fertilizers and pesticides, which will lower population levels

The lawn program includes six applications of compost tea to turf areas. Each application is scheduled 6 to 8 weeks apart during the growing season. The tree/shrub program has six applications, starting with a dormant application in the winter followed by four more foliar treatments. The final application is a soil drench in the fall.

Nematode Application

Nematodes are microscopic worms that naturally occur in the soil. The particular nematodes that we use are those that attack and kill insects. Nematodes are particularly useful against underground insects. High populations are applied to the soil and are good at controlling cranefly larvae, root weevil larvae and fleas.