Summer 2020 - Backyard Wisdom
by Gilbert A Smith, ISA Board Certified Master Arborist

Right now, in our forest preserves and our landscapes we see the evidence of too much water causing our trees to die from drought. Let me explain. Trees, like every organism, need to breathe. Of course, we all know that during the day tree leaves use CO2 and give off O2, through the miracle of photosynthesis. What we may not realize is that trees, like us, respire all the time using O2 and giving off CO2. They don't have mouth parts, but they do have openings called stomates in their leaves, lenticels and ray cells in their stems and roots through which they ”breathe”.