Gardening & Nature Care
 

We have a tree in the back yard that we are struggling to maintain and grow. It was planted a few years ago (not sure on the exact year). It didn't produce a lot of leaves last year and less the year before, and it looks to be struggling this year as well. We have pruned it, watered it, etc. and all the things we need to do to best take care of it physically.

It started making me think of other treatments/conditions we could do to help it thrive. So... I decided to take a more spiritual route and asked it what it needed. I felt like it told me "more love". Not the water and sun kind of love, as it should have its needs met that way anyway. I felt like it said it needs more attention and direct kindness from me or the owner who planted it. So, a few days later, when the weather was nice, I sat out in the lawn beside it and read. I also rubbed the base of the tree (like hugging a tree concept, except it is only hand-held size still). It made me feel happier and healthier so I'm thinking, in terms of reiki/energy practice, it got some of that good energy as well. I'm hoping this will help it grow and flourish. I intend to do this more often on nicer days. (It's therapy for me too!)

I have told the owner, the one who planted it, to love on it more. Sadly, she doesn't get it though. (She isn't the tree hugger type.) I don't want to give up, but I'm not sure what to do.

This post isn't about convincing the original planter of the tree to shed some love on plants. I wanted to start a basic conversation on gardening and the spirituality behind taking care of plants.

I touch and send love to all of my fruit and nut trees.

Have you looked into what kind of soil the tree needs to grow in, such as in acidic? Does it have black spots on the wood or does it get worms on its leaves? Is it an older tree or a young one?

Well, we figure it isn't so much the soil because it's been fine in the past. It is only the last couple of years that it has been a struggle. I haven't noted any physical signs of disease. Being that I can hold the base of the trunk in my hand, I would think that is pretty young.

Your plants that you touch and send love to, are they thriving?

Do you think it's effective to send love to the plant from a distance? As in distance healing.

yes, our tress are thriving. When I first moved in with my husband, I started sending them love and he said for the first time that year, several of the trees got fruit for the first time.

my father in law has many fruit trees in his yard too. he has been tending to them for 50 plus years now. they have all got fruit every year, except for one and that was the year he couldnt tend to them due to back surgery. imagine that.

long distance healing is possible if you can find someone to do that.

when you do it yourself, just be sure to not give it any of your own worries, concerns or sadness cause it will absorb that energy. be sure to send it love.

I have a little dwarf conifer which I always liked very much but it definitely looked dead in 2013. No new green shoots....just brown bits.
I went to it and asked it please not to leave. I just gave it some attention. The next year it put out some green shoots!

It doesn't look fantastic now. I wonder if it gets enough sunlight (on a physical level) but keep giving it a boost of loving thoughts seems to be changing its mind about leaving this world!....for now at least.

aimtobe - We have several trees on our property and many have unfortunately died since we moved in, including a 60 foot pine tree that suddenly got a disease and was gone. For a long time, I took it personally as if the trees were reacting to us being here. I've read articles that talk about a trees life span, disease, etc., but I still couldn't shake the idea that some trees were dying (almost from some personal karma with us).

We even planted a maple tree as a tribute to our dog that we had to say goodbye to. Unfortunately a buck rubbed the bark off of it with its antlers and then my spouse had to relocate it to make room for an expanded basketball court. Then we moved it from the front to the back yard where it had finally had enough meddling and died. I was very sad since it was a tribute tree. But instead we had 8 blue spruces planted in the yard and we call them all our dog's trees now.

One practical suggestion, however, is to put mulch around the tree. We had a pine tree that was on it's last leg and looked like it wasn't going to make it. We put lots of mulch around it a few years back and it responded positively to it. It took off growing back branches, needles and has grown a good 3 or 4 feet taller since simply putting mulch around the base. Something to try anyway.

Hi aimtobe.

I have a lot of trees. One time I had to transplant a spruce from my mom's place. It was growing in a small area for a full grown tree. We wanted to plant it at my place where there's lots of room for it. The digging went well until I met resistance. No matter what I did, that tree wasn't coming out. I stopped digging and pulling at it. I got an idea to start talking to it so I told it to look around where it is. I said there wasn't enough room for it to grow big and I wanted to take it to another place where it could grow as big and strong as it wanted. Then I grabbed it again and pulled it out with absolutely no resistance. The tree's been at my place for some years and is happily growing.

Perhaps the little tree needs to be told that it's in a place where it can grow to its heart content? And that it's in the best location.

Now for a bit of physical care. When watering trees, remember that it's the feeding roots which take up the water. These roots are by the drip line and a bit further out (away from the leaves). The water that's by the trunk, or even touching it, is useless to the tree. For newly transplanted trees, they're to be watered once a week, every week, unless you get a downpour of rain. You can stop watering once the tree is established. Once established, then stop watering it. Continual watering after that encourages shallow roots which you don't want. They'll go further down into the soil which is best for the tree.

As for pruning, you might want to leave it be for now. We went through several years of draught and an oak tree looked very dead to us. We thought of cutting it down. The top half looked dead and the bottom half had leaves. We decided to leave it alone and when the rain came back, the top half leafed out. This was a big tree so it would've cost a lot of money to have it cut down or even pruned which would've made it look odd.

Don't know if this helped and thanks for reading.

Thanks for that idea blackraven. I will try putting mulch around my little conifer. It is a sweet little thing when in full greenery.
I mean....love is great but maybe it needs food as well!
What sort of mulch did you use?

Hi Tobi. Any ole mulch will do. We just got a heaping truck bed full of cedar colored mulch that was shredded wood along with wood chips as well in it. I can't tell you exactly why it worked so well, but it did. That tree is thriving now since adding mulch around the base. :smile:

I'll try that sort of mulch, blackraven. I can get a bag full.
But I still have a feeling my little tree needs more sunlight perhaps. There are many large trees round my garden, mostly outside of my garden on other land. There is a lot of light in Spring but in full summer, a lot of shade.