On Wed, 30 May 2012 13:05:01 -0500, HellT wrote:

On 5/30/2012 10:56 AM, Oren wrote:
On Wed, 30 May 2012 10:44:21 -0400,
wrote:

I had a summer job trimming trees once. Part of the job was to paint
the shiners to prevent bugs from infecting trees. Maybe they lower a
person with a paint can after removing the saw.

Painting or sealing a fresh cut on a tree has been abandoned by
arborist. Trees can heal themselves as the bark grows back over the
cut.

Notice after storms when clean-up of trees is done, they are never
painted or sealed.

They found that painting the cuts with tar or paint actually delayed
healing, which is why the practice was abandoned.

How would that apply, if at all, to underground roots.

My pine tree roots were lifting my sidewalk, so I lifted up a square
and cut out the roots that were under it. Should those have been
painted with tar or not? Or it doesn't matter?