Tree's look sick in summer

This is the time of year my phone rings and rings with people wanting me to look at their trees - truth is, trees that are sick now are showing stress from a lack of health or improper watering.
With this in mind, I've put together a water testing page so you can know what is really happening with your trees water condition:

                     
                                                   Water Check on your Trees
Purchase a couple of inexpensive water meters from Home Depot or Lowes

Go around the perimeter of the tree stabbing the meter into the soil at least 6 inches (you may need to use a screw driver to make the hole if the soil is hard)

Do this starting 6 inches away from the trunk on small trees, 2 feet on large trees, with the first stab.

On small trees go out 2 feet on the second stab, on large trees go out another 2 feet then a third stab clear out to the end of the drip line or where the limbs end on the outside of the tree canopy.

Use a grid pattern and record the results each day for a week under your normal watering process.

Probe down in the ground 2 to 3 time All around the tree in this type of hub and spoke pattern

 Go as deep as you can with the probe Do this every day for 7 days and record the meter readings

START with the first number being the North spoke and move clockwise around the tree

Monday ______________________________________________________________________

Tuesday__________________________________________________________________

Wednesday_______________________________________________________________

Thursday_________________________________________________________________

Friday____________________________________________________________________

Saturday__________________________________________________________________

Sunday____________________________________________________________________

Water was set to run (# of days and which days)  __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Amount of time running on each station
___________________________________________________________________________________

Your trees should be wet once a week and more toward dry the rest of the week. otherwise you are filling the macropores with water and suffocating the tree's roots system...see the section under trees if you need to do an airspade job for drainage. __________________________________________________________________________________