The history of painting tree trunks white. Back in the day, women were in
charge of all chores in the house. The outside work was the mans. There
was two rules. One is if it moved it got greased. The gate, the door and
so on. The second rule was if it did not move it got painted white. E.g.,
the rocks, the fence and yes, the trees.

There is little value to painting tree trunks white. In fact, trees have a
green cortex which traps sunlight energy to manufacture food for the tree
and some associates. Reflecting sunlight would disrupt that wonderful
feature. For more on the topic look up "cortex" here.
www.treedictionary.com many myths are associated with so called "sun scold"
and "frost cracks".


Sincerely,
John A. Keslick, Jr.
Arborist
http://home.ccil.org/~treeman
and www.treedictionary.com
Beware of so-called tree experts who do not understand tree biology.
Storms, fires, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions keep reminding us
that we are not the boss.


wrote in message
. com...
I spray paint the trunks of my trees with white latex (the fruit trees
anyway). this reflects the sun in winter. I also use metal window
mesh, aluminum, put it around the tree and bring the sides together
and use a hand stapler to staple the mesh like it was two pieces of
paper. mesh lets air get to the bark. when I spray with oil or
pesticide, it gets thru the mesh nicely. if the tree outgrows the
mesh it easily forces the staples open which have rusted at that point
anyway.
Ingrid

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:18:26 -0000, byron wrote:

Virtually all of my trees have bark problems (maple, oak, catalpa,
ash, locust). I planted them about four years ago. The bark is
peeling back, exposing the wood. This occurs only on sun-facing
surfaces (southeast to southwest) so I presume it's sun damage. A
local nursery told me to wrap them with plasitic spiral wrappers, but
these seem to foster insects and spider nests. They can also can bind
and "girdle" the tree. I suppose I could remove them and re-wrap them
every month or so...Are there better ways to deal with this? All of
the crowns look really good, but I'm worried about the trunks. The
wrappers also help inhibit deer gnawing. I think maybe the problem
began when the trunks were weakened by the deer chewing and rendered
more vulnerable to the solar radiation. Any ideas on this multi-
faceted problem would be very much appreciate.