If you are suffering from the heat, you may also be wondering if your trees are suffering, too.
Bert Cregg, a professor of horticulture and forestry at Michigan State University, says you probably do not have to worry about the well-established trees in your yard during heat waves.
But younger or more recently planted trees could use a little extra help.
He recommends thorough watering, once a week, near the base of any trees that were planted in the past year or two. If a tree is losing leaves, that may also be a sign it's stressed and could use some water. Avoid watering so much that you see runoff, though.
"You also want to be careful not to kill with kindness," Cregg said. "A good soaking once a week is really a better plan, sometimes people can overcompensate and they think they need to be out there every day."
Cregg also says all trees, established or not, do better with a wide application of mulch, to keep the soil moist in between rains.
"We try to apply two to three inches of wood chips, or brown pine bark, out to the drip line of the tree, to the outer edge of the crown," Cregg said. "We've done research on this and it does a lot to help conserve the soil moisture that occurs just from rainfall, as well as whatever you put down when you're watering. So that's a real good way to help trees out and moderate soil temperatures. So we don't get the extreme fluctuations of dry and very warm soils."
