Nail in tree.

My neighbor was telling me that she had a tree die and the person who cut it down said that it died because of a nail that was nailed into the tree she said the person who cut it down says nails poison trees he said he could tell the nail killed it by the black brown streak inside the tree. Is this tree trimmer right.

I have heard that copper nails will kill a tree.I would think it would take a number of them to do it.Regular nails are not going to kill a tree.Edge

Thankyou.

It's a terrible idea to pound a nail into a tree. Eventually that tree is going to need pruning or to be taken down, and nails do a real job on chain saws!

There is an old saying that the best way to get an old apple tree to blossom is to put a nail into it.
Here in our Pacific Northwest Forests people nail old growth trees to discourage cutting of forests. The chainsaw hits it and rebounds against the cutter.
Nails don't kill trees. It could be that someone used the nail to seal a hole that had some sort of herbicide in it. Someone may have wanted that tree dead.. hmmm I have this neighbor with a tree that shades my garden... hmmm...

bad peg, bad bad peg

The tree just grows protective tissue around the nail. It does no damage whatsoever.
Why drive nails in trees?

Nails won't hurt the tree. Sawmills won't buy trees with nails because of the discoloration. I can't believe someone would be stupid enough to drive nails into trees they don't own, with the hope the sawhand will be injured. The reason we have as many forests as we do is because of the reforestation projects of logging companies.

Gosh, I hope no one thinks I'm crazy, but I put a nail in our honey locust so I could hang a pouch of impatiens from it every summer . . . I love it and the tree doesn't seem to mind either.

Your not crazy. I've driven nail in several of the trees around my home for various purposes. What I was referring to was some wacko driving nail into trees that don't belong to them for the purpose of stopping a logger from doing his job. The guy that would get hurt would be a hired hand not the owner of the logging company. On time of that, all it would really do was dull the chainsaw. It would have to be an awfully big nail or the saw would cut through it.

I agree with Jim. Putting a nail in a tree to cause problems for workers simply isn't a nice thing to do and could end up doing extreme physical damage to the person.

We just hung a bird house from one of our trees but we used a plastic wire tie cause hubby didn't want to bang a nail into it. Not sure why, though...

As all above, think somebody should put the tree trimmer straight on some facts.

Quite a few of us have seen nails (usually iron, or assumed to be iron) in healthy trees. Tree spiking, as said (iron has not been the only material used) is obviously not intended to kill the trees, though it's a stupidly dangerous thing to do.

'The Tree and Shrub Specialist' says that iron nails were previously driven into fruit trees to encourage fruit bearing, under the misconception that it would make up for iron deficiency in the soil. It also says that harm from copper nails is a misconception, copper previously having been a main ingredient in many fungicidal sprays.

To Peg, with the neighbor's tree, know how you feel. My wife's grandmother,
had a spouse who was a mine chemist (access to chemicals) and was a lady of action. She drilled into the tree and put in saltpetre (potassium nitrate). Sounds like more "eco-terrorism" to me. For girdling, you'd have to trespass on the neighbour's property. On the other hand, maybe you'd better stick to shade gardening!

Here we tap maple trees for sap to make syrup...here's an excerpt from a maple sugar farm. It doesn't hurt the tree at all, and I agree booby trapping a tree for a logger to get hurt is wrong.

"Before we will tap a healthy Maple tree (Acer Saccharum), it needs to be at least 12 inches in diameter. To reach this size, a tree needs to grow for about forty years. When we go into the woods to tap trees in season, we carry a drill (either manual or power), a hammer, buckets, covers, and pockets full of spouts. After selecting an appropriate maple tree, we drill a hole about [10] inches into the tree at waist height. While older spouts require a 7/16" diameter hole, the new health spouts we use need only a 19/64" hole. After firmly inserting a spout into the hole, we tap it lightly with a hammer. On a warm spring day, sap will immediately start to drip after tapping."

I'm pressed Lynnie.

pressed how? *grin*

At my age it's a wonder I can walk and chew gum at the same time.

mmm-hmmmm...I think you do ok ;)

Wow Lynnie, that's tremendous information concerning gathering sap from a Maple tree!

Thank's

I'm out of my class with some of you guys. Thought I knew a little something before I got on here, now I realize how little of something I knew. I wonder if that makes sense to any one but me. Oh well.

Hey Lynnie, that's the pressed I was talking about. Just like Rachael said.

well you're welcome but it was easy enough to cut & paste the info in there..."we" does not mean me personally lol remember that song 'you were born in the city
concrete under your feet' Up until a few years ago I was more comfortable with the sound of sirens than crickets.

Jim all we really need to know is how find out what we don't know.

You sure your not a red neck?

Lynnie, you got to say your a red-neck too;-) I am most certainly a RED-NECK and proud of it!

Do youuns wair calico dresses over yore blue jeans and wear brogan shoes.

LOL! if being a redneck is the ultimate in common sense, count me in!
what are brogan shoes? I love shoes, I have lots of shoes, I was shoe shopping today, only bought 1 pair (well 1 pair each for the kids too). I completely lose my common sense when it comes to shoes though. My user name should be Imelda.

I had never heard the word brogan until I was in my 30's. Most people use the word to mean cheap, poorly-made, ugly shoes. Some mean a work shoe- it might be good for that but nontheless ugly. It's not a brogan unless it's clunky and ugly. Granny in Beverly Hillbillies. (her shoes, not her)

dp72, would you mind taking a look at kwanjin's post concerning the Chamaecyparis obtusa.

Thank's

Rachel

uh oh, no brogans for me then...I buy my shoes based purely on form, not function.

Brogans have to have three eyelets at the bottom and three of those things you loop the strings around at the top. They were probably cheap, because we wore them in the field choppin cotton. I don't know about the poorly made. They were tough, lasted a long time and I hated them with a passion.

My wife has a passion for shoes. She would buy a pair for each foot. What gets me is when she goes to the closet and says, " I don't have any shoes to wear with this." I'm looking at at least 40 pairs of shoes and can't believe it.

I make a confession, I have a passion for shoes, too. Women's shoes. When I see a woman, I don't look where most men look, I look at their feet to see what their shoes look like. Ya'll wear the ugliest shoes I have ever seen and pay big money for the privelege.

Jim I never pay retail (she says with a straight face). I can't buy ugly shoes...I try but I always end up with the prettiest pair I can find. Took me 5 years to get a pair of snowboots kept coming home with boots that can't get wet *grin*

Lynnie I ate to be the one who bursts your bubble but some are just less ugly. Boots, well that's a different story.

In regards to nails in trees. Nails don't hurt trees, what hurts is when the nail is taken out. Sap pours out of the hole which attracts borers and other insects. Borers and beetles carry all sorts of diseases - for instance, the Elm Bark Beetle carried dutch elm and we all know what happened to our wonderful elms. The insects who live on the sap excrete frass (bug poop) which then causes a fungus like mold which then harms the bark etc. etc..... Birds that live off of sap in trees, like the woodpecker aren't eating the sap, they are eating the insects that are attracted to the sap. Birds will peck at the tree and come back later for their dinner.

If there is a nail in a tree, say for a birdfeeder, leave it there. By the way, NEVER use tar to fill in a whole or a wound from pruning, the tree will naturally "heal" itself, tarring will only deter the tree from taking care of itself.

Okay, too much information, but as an arborist I cannot help myself!

Andrea

Good information. Thanks.

Andrea I never turn down good info, thank you! :)

Rope and wire pose a much greater threat to trees than a nail. We lost a 14 in diameter limb off a live oak because the previous owners tied a nylon rope around the limb when it was smaller. The rope girdled the limb and severely weakened it. When the limb snapped during a hurricane, we found the rope imbedded in the limb with tons of bark over it, but damage to the cambium and constricted growth.

What an awful thing! Can you imagine anyone tying a wire or strong rope around a limb? Evidently somebody did.

Aschnapp - great info! Thanks for sharing!

Any help on this one: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1029165/

COPPER NAILS ARE USED TO KILL TREES,

We have used copper nails to kill tree stumps so my husband can pull them out with the tractor. If the stump is dead, they come out easily without pulling half the yard with it. We have 7 acres which we have spent years clearing and gardening, and those copper nails have been a great help...so why people would say they don't harm trees is beyond me, they will kill a tree in a year.
I have done this to no less then 30 tree stumps, it worked every time

it is my understanding that galvanized nails have zinc that might harm trees
Iron is used to help fruit trees bear more fruit.......it is especailly helpful when buried at the root base when the tree is planted. I don't recommend damaging a trees bark, especially a young tree. It may heal or it might be a source of infection.

the fact that copper is in fungicides, only means the copper kills something.... a fungicide goes on the exterior - very different then leaching into a tree for a few years.

In a pinch pennies work too - don't tell anyone....

You don't think the stumps would have died and decayed without the copper nails?

The iron in the metal that nails are made from is not in a form that a plant can utilize it.

If you drill holes large enough to insert copper pennies, you are opening the tree up to infection.