The Sick Tree Treatment

It’s been feeling like fall, so I cooked a pot of stew Wednesday evening.

While cutting up my stew meat and lamenting about the price of beef (it looks like I won’t be smoking a brisket until I get a raise), I looked out the window into the front yard and noticed that the leaves of my Chinese tallow tree are still green.

It seems like they should be changing color by now.

Most people think of Chinese tallow trees as a weed. Sure, they drop thousands of seeds that sprout in my yard every year. But it’s the only tree on my place with truly spectacular fall color. Where is the color?

That’s not the only weird thing about that tree this year.

The deep freeze that came with Winter Storm Uri in February damaged a great many trees around the area. The freeze apparently killed all of the top branches in my Chinese tallow. The tree decided to sprout a bunch of new branches from the trunk. It no longer has a canopy, but rather a column of foliage.

A majestic post oak tree stands in my back yard. It must be the oldest post oak on my property. The trunk is easily five feet in diameter. During the freeze, that post oak was the last of my worries. I figured it had seen many cold winters in its lifetime. An old outhouse sits under the canopy, which may have provided some good fertilizer in its early years.

This spring, after the freeze, it budded out just fine. But then sometime around May, all of the foliage turned brown and fell off the tree. I’m afraid it died.

Everyone I have spoken with about it and everything I’ve read says to wait. I think that’s good advice regarding old trees. It might come back next spring, they say. I have my doubts, though. I’ll have plenty of firewood if it is dead. Too bad I can’t afford brisket.

The post oak tree could be my fault and not the weather’s. Back in May just before it dropped its leaves, I decided to clean up some of the undergrowth. There was a big elm tree growing up through the canopy, about six or eight feet away from the trunk. I cut that elm tree down. Now I wonder if I may have disturbed the oak tree in doing so.

It’s been nine months since the freeze, and we’re still seeing the effects.

I’m no tree expert, but I have resurrected some sick trees before. I use a method that Texas organic gardening guru Howard Garrett calls the “Sick Tree Treatment.”

The first step is the most important – stop using high nitrogen fertilizers and chemical pesticides. Pesticides kill the beneficial nematodes that are so important for healthy soil. Chemical fertilizers are high in salt and harsh on the soil structure. Trees are sensitive to imbalances in the soil.

Step two involves radically exposing the root flare.

If you look at any healthy tree growing in the wild, you’ll notice that the root flare is almost always above the ground level. When people plant trees, they often set them too deep in the ground. Many times, the trees come from the nursery planted too deep in their containers. Tree roots need some exposure to oxygen. Garrett says this is the num

Garrett says this is the number one cause of stress in trees. If any of your trees are suffering from stress, freeze-related or otherwise, expose the root flare and see what happens.

Step three involves heavily aerating the root zone. Don’t till the soil under the canopy, which chops up and destroys the tiny feeder roots. Instead, use a probe to punch holes in the soil under the canopy.

Step four, and this one, I think, is optional – apply organic amendments such as compost, whole ground cornmeal and molasses to stimulate microbial life. Just be sure not to pile up so much compost that you bury the root flare. I have done the sick tree treatment twice, once to a post oak in

I have done the sick tree treatment twice, once to a post oak infested with boring insects and once to a pear tree suffering from what appeared to be fireblight, and the results were dramatic both times. I never even used any organic amendments on the post oak tree. Rather I just exposed the root flare and aerated the soil.

What kinds of freeze damage have you experienced? Is it just me, or are your trees a little too green for this time of year? Send me your thoughts at andy@fayettecountyrecord.com.