Why is the tree in my front yard stressed and losing its leaves?
Why is the tree in our front yard dying?
It’s a question that is asked on gardening groups daily especially in the heat of summer.
The simple answer is almost always a lack of water getting to the roots of the tree, but that is an oversimplification of a series of complex problems many inner city and suburban homeowners are facing and most are, unfortunately, choosing to ignore.
Chances are good that the tree is not dying, but under stress. Chances are also pretty good that, if action is not taken, the tree will begin to show more serious signs of decline. Over time, a lack of action will result in such decline that the tree will eventually die or have to be cut down or left as a snag for birds and other wildlife. It may take several years for the tree to finally give up and give itself over to the borers and woodpeckers.
But that tragic ending is not inevitable.
For more on dealing with trees showing stress, check out these posts:
• Why Birch Tree leaves turn yellow and fall off prematurely
• Birch clumps at home in the woodland
• Do not cut down that dead or dying tree
Don’t give up on your stressed tree too early
In a recent Facebook post a homeowner showed a picture of a maple tree in her front yard. She had already concluded that it was dying, and it appeared nothing anyone was going to say would change her mind. Despite assurances from others that the tree was just under stress and needed help, she maintained it was too late. The helpful posts from other gardeners were simply ignored because "other maple trees in the suburban neighbourhood,” according to the poster, “had already died or were in the process of dying.”
I don’t doubt that most of the neighbourhood trees were dying out.
One look at the picture, and it was clear the tree was a good example of a “street kid tree,: an orphaned tree, if you like.
Chances are, most of the trees in the neighbourhood were suffering from the same problem and dying off one by one. Their deaths certainly pointed to a major problem, but it most likely wasn’t what the homeowners all believed – that a disease was running through the neighbourhood.
In a woodland garden, there are more trees to cast shade. Here a large shade tree casts a delicate shade on smaller, understory trees and help them get through times of less rainfall. In addition, the ground is covered with a mulch to hold the moisture in the ground and ferns grow around the larger shade tree to help hold the moisture in the ground.
Now, there are many factors that could cause the trees to die off – including a disease spreading among them – but judging from the picture and what I could see on neighbouring properties, I’m pretty confident that the problem was water.
To be more specific, a lack of water getting to where it needed to go.
I’m also confident that the neighbourhood residents would tell you that they water diligently and assure anyone who asked that “there was no way watering was the problem.”
Make no excuse, the real problem is water and the role it plays on our suburban and inner city “Street trees.”
Watering the grass is not the same as watering a tree.
Five reasons suburban trees may not make it to adulthood:
• Most of the trees being pushed at local nurseries are meant as understory trees, meaning growing under the shade of larger trees like maples, oaks and other shade trees. Growing alone in the middle of a lawn means full sun. These trees are not prepared to deal with that much sun, especially these days when temperatures are soaring to new heights and staying there for weeks instead of just a few days. If the trees survive it’s likely because they benefitted from the two-storey home that might shade them for a period during the day.
• In most of today’s new neighbourhoods, water is diverted from the roofs of homes to underground pipes and shipped directly to the waste water plant where the already clean water is “cleaned” and fed back into lakes and rivers offering nothing of value to the plants and trees it was originally meant for. Again, it points back to a lack of water. In addition, these same trees are often planted close to a paved driveway that blocks any water from seeping through to roots that may have travelled under the pavement.
• The tree is often planted in the middle of a sea of grass that also sucks up what little water makes it to the ground, leaving little to no water for the tree. And, because it is planted in grass, it is susceptible to the gas-powered whipper snapper that trims the grass around the tree while it carves out the tender bark of the young tree and leaves it unable to send water and nutrients up its trunk if it could even find any.
• The volcano effect where homeowners pile up mulch around the trunk of a young tree sentencing it to a slow death.
• Finally, our little tree is an orphan in a sea of well fertilized and pest-free turf grass. Unlike its cousins in the forests that have a mother tree, siblings, cousins and a whole community to support it, our little guy is on its own to face the weather, harsh conditions and a lack of shade all on its own.
“Not only is turf grass a non-native species offering little to nothing of value to wildlife, pollinators and other insects that feed our birds, it’s sucking the life out of our suburban trees by stealing most of the water meant to give them life.”
Are suburban trees in trouble?
What’s a “street” tree you ask?
The term is explored in great detail in Peter Wohlleben’s best selling book, The Hidden Life of Trees, where the author uses it to explain the complex association and communication that a healthy woodland or forest exhibits and compares it to the everyday struggle inner city and suburban trees face.
The Hidden Life of Trees was clear about the benefits of forests over singular trees planted on a front yard surrounded by non-native grass and facing the world – the beating sun, the cold winds, freezing temperatures – on their own. He compares the “street trees” that are found in most urban environments, to “street kids.” These lone trees face difficult and almost always shortened lives compared to trees that share resources as a family group in a proper forest or woodland setting.
(You can read all about this excellent book in my earlier post The Hidden Life of Trees, and more here on Dr. Nadina Galle and her revealing work at her website “The Internet of Nature.”)
Dr. Galle, a Canadian living and working in the Netherlands, is focused on how we protect the urban forest into the future and she wants technology to be leading the way.
“Roughly 50-70 per cent of the urban forest in any given city is on private/homeowner land, which means only 30-50 per cent is actually in the maintenance area of the city,” Dr. Galle tells Ferns & Feathers from her home in the Netherlands.
“This is crucial because it shows the massive role homeowners can have in the development and longevity of the urban forest,” she explained via email.
That “role homeowners play” begins with taking care of the “street trees” on our properties that are part of the urban forests.
The importance of “community” in the natural world is brought home by the work of a group of women in Ireland who have taken the term micro or “pocket forest”to new heights.
By planting intensive miniature forests on tiny lots, some as small as a single shopping mall parking space, the team are proving that a full grown native forest does not have to take hundreds of years to grow into maturity, but can be done in as little as 20 years. For more on their work, check out my earlier post here.
City trees just need a little help
To better explain the concept of “street trees,” think about a teenager trying to grow up in the inner city without parents, a real safe place to call home and no friends or support to help them get through difficult times. Chances are that “street kid” is not going to make it to adulthood, but that doesn’t mean that without a little help that the same kid can’t become a successful adult.
The same can be said for our “street trees.”
Street trees under stress need our help to survive more than ever.
Our lonely trees are struggling
Let’s get back to the tree under discussion.
The picture showed a well-established maple tree surrounded by a sea of grass and a tiny garden around the base of the tree trunk edged with larger river rocks.
It’s a recipe for disaster that, unfortunately, is not that uncommon in many subdivisions.
(Just for some background, Street Trees in the inner city have a life span of as little as nine years. In human terms, that’s not much older than a toddler.)
The homeowner assured readers that the little garden around the tree was not the problem because other maple trees in the neighbourhood had died and had not had a garden around the trunk.
Wrong. The little garden wrapped tightly around the trunk may not have caused the tree’s decline, but is certainly another part of the bigger problem. The garden was climbing up the trunk suffocating the tree and possibly bringing disease to its trunk.
Removing the grass around a tree is an excellent idea that should be encouraged, but make it large. If you can spread it out beyond the drip line of the tree’s canopy. Every few years make it larger as your tree continues to grow and the drip line spreads out. This will allow water to travel to the roots much easier than having to penetrate the fibrous, thirsty roots of turf grass.
Remember that street kid. Let’s compare the garden to taking a winter coat away from the street kid in the middle of winter. Probably not the only reason the teenager is going to struggle during the winter, but a significant contributing factor. If the teenager gets sick, has no support structure and the temperatures continue to drop, there is a good chance the child will perish from the cold and sickness. The coat would certainly be considered a contributing factor, but death would likely be the result of pneumonia or hypothermia.
A little help with a warm coat and chances are the teen would have not gotten ill and survived winter just fine.
The right amount of water for our struggling tree will result in the same life-saving result.
Many homeowners, think a quick watering of the front lawn is all that the tree needs.
In other words, if the grass looks good, we are good to go,
Nothing could be further from the truth.
A need for deep watering
Trees need water and the bigger they are, the more they need. So as a tree grows in your front yard you need to take this into consideration. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to water more and more as the tree ages. It does mean, however, that the tree needs to be able to access water deeper in your soil. Tree roots will find that water, providing there is sufficient water to find.
A huge problem in suburbia is, you guessed it, those acres of turf grass so many homeowners like to worship from the sidewalk.
Not only is turf grass a non-native species offering little to nothing of value to wildlife, pollinators and other insects that feed our birds, it’s sucking the life out of our suburban trees by stealing most of the water meant to give them life.
Even a heavy rain is likely only going to water the grass and the first few inches of the soil.
That’s likely not enough.
We need a deep watering. The kind our suburban trees often get in spring when 3 feet of snow slowly melts and the water works itself slowly and deeply into the ground.
That’s a deep watering.
How do you deep water a tree?
In other words, pull out your garden hose, turn it on to a little more than a trickle (not full open,) put it at or around the drip line of the tree (approximately where the outer leaves of the tree are located) and let it run for three hours. Then move it about a quarter of the way around the tree and let it go for another three hours… and then do that at least two more times until you have watered around the entire circumference of the tree. Yes that’s up to 12 hours of watering, but not 12 hours of all-out watering.
You don’t need to do this on a weekly basis.
On a good year, where we get lots of rain, you may not have to do it at all.
If you have a woodland garden where the tree roots are shaded for most of the day and enjoy the company of other trees, you may not have to ever do it.
But if you are going to plant a tree, in the middle of your yard, in the blistering sun, with turf grass all around it sucking up what little moisture there is, plan on doing it several times over the summer.
That’s the reality.
If that’s too much to ask, be prepared to lose your priceless tree just when it is beginning to look good and add value and some shade to the property.
What other factors cause stress in trees
One look around a typical suburban neighbourhood these days and you would be hard-pressed to find a property with more than a single sad tree growing in the front yard.
Too often the properties are small and the thought of a large oak or maple tree growing in the front yard is too much for new homeowners to imagine. They worry about the roots heading straight for the foundation, or worse, the tree falling on the home and demolishing it in one full swoop. Needless to say the oak tree won’t reach anywhere near that size in the homeowner’s lifetime.
Instead, miniature trees (more properly named under story trees) guaranteed to grow no more than 10 or 12 feet, are purchased and proudly planted in the middle of the grass where they are exposed to 12 hours of searing sun day after day, are open to salt spray from the roads and freezing winds in winter.
They have no protection, are usually non-native trees so likely can’t deal with the harsh conditions we throw at them, and they are asked to do this all alone. But, and this is important, they have pretty double flowers that are infertile so they don’t bear fruit and make a mess (sorry for the sarcasm). Some, in fact many homeowners, would unfortunately call that a win-win. Not for wildlife it isn’t.
Unfortunately, the chances of that under story tree surviving are slim. If it does survive, it will most likely struggle its entire life and never perform the way it was originally meant.
And the more of them that are planted, the more our suburban forest is threatened. As our large native shade trees slowly give way to weeping whatevers, so too will the birds, insects and mammals that depend on the large native trees for the caterpillars and other insects they provide.
If you live in a typical new subdivision, take a drive to an older, nearby neighbourhood where the houses are older and lot sizes are also on the small size. Notice the large Maples and Oak trees growing and recognize the character the surviving trees provide to the neighbourhood. These trees were likely planted at a time when today’s miniature, weeping variety of trees were not yet available. Imagine, one of these in your front yard or towering over your patio in the backyard. Imagine the shade, the birds singing and the whisper of the leaves in the evening.
Now go out a plant one for the future. The under story tree can go in next year or the year after when the shade tree can protect it from the heat of our ever increasing mid-day sun.