I live in Guatemala. Here people have a passion for painting things white, including rocks, telephone poles, curbs, and tree trunks. They paint with a lime solution that looks like white paint but rubs off on everything. I don’t like the way it looks, I prefer to leave rocks and trees natural, but I am told that it is necessary to paint about a meter up on all tree trunks "to protect them from bugs". I think the gardeners just want job security. And I have yet to figure out why cement telephone poles need the same protection.
The method of painting tree trunks here in the U.S. is called
"whitewashing". It is mainly done to protect the trunks of trees from "sun scald". If it is a lime solution, then it is being used as a "preservative" of wood. The white paint, as you know, will "reflect" the sunlight, helping to protect the trunk. A trunk that has been damaged from the high temperatures of sun scald will be more susceptible to disease and insect attack. The white paint also gives an orchard a "clean" and even appearance. As far as the white painting of the rocks and telephone poles in Guatemala, I can only assume that it is for visibility purposes. By painting things white, it allows for better visibility to motorists at night, keeping them from "smacking" into them.. Hope this answers your question…
…$Billy Ray$
This is an age old custom of painting the trunks of trees to help the plant. First you have to think that the 2 ft. off the ground is not going to stop the insects from attacking certain plants or trees or yes, telephone poles. Even as a young man growing up in the southern states, i’ve asked that question. Aside from their thinking of protecting the plants, it was also a designation of marking a location, better visibility at night and to mark certain landmarks. Somehow we have taken that as a custom of protecting trees which seems a bit far fetched.
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The method of painting tree trunks here in the U.S. is called
"whitewashing". It is mainly done to protect the trunks of trees from "sun scald". If it is a lime solution, then it is being used as a "preservative" of wood. The white paint, as you know, will "reflect" the sunlight, helping to protect the trunk. A trunk that has been damaged from the high temperatures of sun scald will be more susceptible to disease and insect attack. The white paint also gives an orchard a "clean" and even appearance. As far as the white painting of the rocks and telephone poles in Guatemala, I can only assume that it is for visibility purposes. By painting things white, it allows for better visibility to motorists at night, keeping them from "smacking" into them.. Hope this answers your question…
…$Billy Ray$
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24yrs…landscape profession
2yrs…tree & shrub technician
2yrs…turf specialist
2yrs…greenskeeper (championship golf course)
DPR licensed applicator
Above titles…"Validated"
Melody, they don’t paint the trunks of trees to protect them from bugs. Where does people get that idea from? There is a special paint make by the paint companies to put onto the trunks of trees. Glidden Paint is one paint company ,and it is called Tree Trunk White. The purpose of this act, is to protect the trees bark from sunburning and creating damage. That all folks! Tell your gardener to pull weeds instead. Byee
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I’m not sure about Guatemala or what insects it might deter but Billy Ray has the ‘sun scald’ correct, When orchards top work a grove of fruit trees to change the variety they paint the trunks white until the grafts leaf out enough to do the shading. RScott
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Very interesting and funny question. Especially the telephone poles!
In coastal Mexico there is an ant that nests in the coconut trees and I am told that the bites are wicked-mean. The harvesters have to climb the coconut palms to get the fruit out, and they get stung. The people told me that the ants will not cross white trunks to nest in a painted coconut tree, and sure enough, you could look up in the trees on abandoned coconut groves and see the brown ant nests in the crowns of the unpainted coconut trees.
I think the rocks and telephone poles comes from the old tropical third world attitude that if "some" of anything is good, then "more" of it is better!
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in bonsai, we paint or apply LIME SULFUR to dead parts of the tree only. the driftwood (jin or shari) whether man-made or natural are applied with this solution to protect them from borers and other pests
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