I went to a park up in Ceder Hills (the park was really neat with a triple story playground). While there I noticed a gorgeous tree with a trunk that looked like this:

This is after I attacked the girdling wire with a pair of hand pruners. The tree was not badly staked to begin with, but that was years ago. They did cover the wires, but the material they used has degraded, and the wire has started to grow into the tree. Without intervention, the tree will be girdled and die. Unfortunetly this is pretty common.

I wrote about tree staking a while ago, and how I staked a few trees that needed staking. If you go and look, it is very different than what you normally see. The most common mistakes made with tree staking is:

• Staking too often: Many trees simply don’t need staking. A tree should only be staked if it is wobbly or tilting to one side.
• Staking too tightly: When finished the tree should still be able to move about, just prevented from tilting too far in one direction.
• Leaving it on too long: Staking material should always be removed after the first year. That’s the main problem behind the staking job above.

I contacted the parks department and they at least said they send someone out to see if the trees are properly staked. The trees actually shouldn’t be staked at all anymore–but hopefully the problem will get fixed. Better than my pair of hand pruners did.