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Texas Trees Foundation says San Antonians should water their trees stat

Your trees are so thirsty right now.

With seemingly no end to this prolonged heat wave, Texas Trees Foundation (TTF) is recommending that homeowners and business owners across Central Texas water their trees immediately.

The Foundation has been receiving inquiries about what to do in response to temperatures remaining well above 100°F for lo, these many days — especially in urban centers, currently in the throes of urban heat, where pavement and less vegetation make it up to 10°F hotter than the surrounding countryside.

In these times of extreme heat, trees should be given priority over other landscape plants, including lawns. A lawn left unwatered will naturally go dormant for the season and turn brown, but can turn green again after rain or watering.

A lawn is shallow. It can be re-established in a single season. A large tree cannot. Save the tree.

How to water your tree

Do not water established trees at the trunk. Instead, water from the "dripline" - which is the edge of the tree’s branches and outward. The basic rule of thumb is to apply water in a circular band that’s at least half as wide as the distance from the trunk to the dripline.
Trees prefer to be watered slowly and deeply. Sprinklers are for lawns but not for trees. Instead, use a bubbler, multiple drip emitters, or a hand-held hose to deliver water to the tree’s root zone. Water the soil to one to two feet deep each time you water and let the surface dry between waterings.
The simplest method of watering: Turn your garden hose on a slow trickle and leave it in different zones within the dripline until you can easily insert a screwdriver into the soil. This kind of "deep watering" encourages deep rooting – and deep roots are the best way for a tree to survive a drought. Irrigate established trees once every two weeks during the growing season.

Texas Trees Foundation’s Urban Forester Rachel McGregor reminds homeowners to follow water restrictions, but points out that "trees provide an enormous asset to our landscape by reducing heating and cooling cost in our homes, cleaning the air we breathe, increasing our mental and physical health, decreasing storm water runoff, and many other benefits."

Other techniques
Beyond the necessity of watering, keep these other tips in mind to help your trees survive:

The best time for summer watering is in the morning or evening between the hours of 7 pm-8 am. Avoid watering during the hottest part of the day, 10 am-6 pm, because water gets lost in evaporation.
Remove grass and other plants which can compete within the soil root zone for available water. This water competition can be severe.
Use mulch to conserve water and prevent weed competition. Mulch is any tree’s best friend. Besides minimizing evaporation of soil moisture and limiting rainwater runoff, mulch also protects the tree from mower and weed trimmer damage. Wood chips and shredded bark can be used for mulch. Cover the area with mulch about 2 to 3 inches deep, taking care to avoid the area next to the tree’s trunk.

Do not use fertilizer or prune your tree during summer months. Both cause more stress. Fertilizers promote growth that the tree cannot sustain under unfavorable conditions and pruning off good leaves takes food away from an already stressed tree. The only pruning that should be allowed is to remove dead branches or any branches that pose a hazard.

Heat stress
Your trees will show signs if they are stressed from the heat:

Wilted leaves are one of the early signs of stress on a tree during drought.
Leaf scorching, when the edges of leaves or the space between a leaf’s veins turns brown

When a tree begins to exhibit signs of heat stress, irrigation should begin immediately to avoid long-term damage to the tree. Drought and high temperatures deliver a one-two punch to trees. Trees exhale moisture from their leaves in a process called transpiration. As temperatures climb, transpiration kicks into overdrive. During extreme heat, there isn’t enough water in the soil to replenish the water lost. When this happens, trees adopt survival strategies that can stress and weaken them.

The Texas Trees Foundation (TTF) is a non-profit tree planting organization dedicated to greening North Central Texas.

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Red Light

San Antonio City Council votes to end horse-drawn carriage rides by 2030

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Horses will no longer pull carriages on the streets of downtown San Antonio.

Life for a horse in San Antonio is about to look a lot different. City Council has unanimously voted (with one abstention) to phase out the use of horse-drawn carriages over the next five years. That means by January 1, 2030, there will be none on the streets at all; instead, there will be electric carriages.

These plans have been in the making since 2022 — if not always at the same level of intensity — when District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and District 3 Councilmember Phyllis Viagran wrote up some concerns about the horses' wellbeing. A special session at the end of October 2024 hinted to San Antonians that the end for this practice was neigh — sorry, nigh — and the final vote was made on December 12. In addition to accepting the plan, it extended its timeframe by two years.

The initial proposal included worries about the horses' exposure to traffic and pollution, as well how their presence might exacerbate those issues for the environment at large by slowing traffic. It also raised concerns about the effects of standing or walking on hard surfaces for too long, or spending time in extreme weather.

At the December 12 meeting, San Antonians gave impassioned speeches about animal welfare — both to call attention to the need for better conditions and to defend the reputations and jobs of current horse drivers — but it wasn't the first time the council heard from the public about the issue.

In a prior city survey, 50,476 respondents weighed in. Of those respondents, 51.98 percent said they liked the idea to "Transition horse-drawn carriages to electric carriages and pedicabs and ban horse drawn carriages completely." There were alternative solutions listed, but respondents were less drawn to them.

A cultural divide emerged in the data and continued in the December meeting: some people avoided the carriages because they worried about the treatment of the horses, while others enjoyed them because of their historical echoes and living legacy. Many speakers in favor of the plan used this to form their argument, raising questions about history versus progress.

More tangible objections to the plan hinged on the businesses — specifically five companies — and jobs that would be lost, which was the main factor behind extending the adjustment period.

Discussions about the particulars of the electric vehicles are still to come, as confirmed in the discussion near the end of the meeting. Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez addressed concerns about what would happen to the horses, mentioning the Brady Hunter Foundation as a future partner in finding them rescue homes.

Some council members also brought up rhetorical questions about animal exploitation by groups like Sea World, the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, military and police forces, and even various groups in the Fiesta parade, although these did not come with a formal motion to pick the issues up.

This decision could have a ripple effect on other Texas cities. Dallas has recently considered a similar ban, but it appears to have stalled; Austin's attempts at a ban have been unsuccessful, but according to the Austin-American Statesman, only one operator is permitted to bring horses downtown. She declines to do so because the long hours are unfair to her and the horses. Houston does have horse-drawn carriages, and there seems to be little conversation about banning them.

Cities like Chicago and Salt Lake City have led the charge in the United States with some of the most prominent successful bans. Other cities around the world with bans include Brussels and Guadalajara, which both switched to electric models. Bans that have been around for years, like Guadalajara's and Prague's, still aren't out of the woods — people are still pushing back on the decision, so it sounds like San Antonio still has much work cut out for it.

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