When our neighborhood was developed, there was a requirement to plant a maple tree in each home’s front yard.
A storm with some strong winds came through last night and blew over our neighbor’s maple tree. Looks like it snapped right where the trunk meets the ground. Not uprooted at all. A very similar thing happened to another neighbor last year.
Our maple tree is the one still standing in the pictures. We really love this tree. Is there anything I can do to help prevent our tree from suffering a similar fate?
The fallen tree’s leaves had started to yellow a bit over the last few weeks (it’s been very hot).
We also do have an irrigation system for the lawn, I don’t know if that makes a difference.
by jschomb
10 Comments
I bet both your neighbors trees were rotten at the bottom. Don’t let your trunk rot. Really doesn’t seem like anything you can do other than don’t rot out the base of the trunk.
Yes, don’t bury the flare roots at the base of the tree.
Wow. I have never seen a tree fall over like that.
Yeah, it looks like it was rotten at the bottom. Maybe the usual suspects: overwatering and a tight spiral of girdling roots? –if so, caused mostly by someone not taking the extra care when planting the tree.
Don’t plant it so shittly. That shit rotted through.
This is almost the poster child of the consequences of burying the tree.
This is what happens when trees are planted too deep and look like telephone poles. The part of the trunk that’s meant to be above ground rots and it falls over like this.
Do you run irrigation and does it hit the tree daily?
I’m betting if all these maples were planted at the same time by the same people, this is going to start happening with more frequency. A high percentage of those plantings may already be in a mortality spiral.
It fell over like a cartoon