Last spring, when my dad opened the shed where he keeps his lemon trees, we found one almost completely stripped of bark (second picture). We thought it might be some kind of pest, but thanks to this sub, we found a rat infestation. Most people said the tree would die because the bark around the trunk was gone, and my dad was gutted.
Well, this resilient little thing proved everybody wrong! It lost some leaves, but one year later it's still alive and flowering again 🙂
by TheChopinet
15 Comments
Girdling is a slow death, not immediately. You’re out of the woods if it still is thriving in 5 years.
Are you saying Reddit was wrong. OMG NOOOO
r/AfterBeforeWhatever
For every one expert, you get 100 karma seeking twats regurgitating something they read another twat say on a different post.
“contrary to what everybody said” should be the motto of this sub.Â
The sheer confidence you see here on when a tree or plant is definitely this or definitely that is insane.
I’ve been down voted to oblivion on posts exactly like this where someone says “is this going to survive?” And I’ve told them to leave it and see what happens.
I’ve been gardening long enough to know that plants can be more resilient than you think. And also on the flip side they can be incredibly fragile. But the key is that unless the person is giving advice based on having the exact same plant, grown from the exact same seed, at the exact same time, then take everything they say with a million grains of salt.
Tbh, I would have said that tree was a goner too. But there must have been enough parts of the bark that survived to form new bark and keep the tree going! That tree is a trooper, and your dad should buy a lottery ticket. 🙂
This gives me hope because my beautiful, beloved Japanese Maple was absolutely debarked by the damn bunnies over the winter and it has suffered greatly but it has leaves this spring. I have hope.
Keep us updated please!
!remindme 1 year
This tiny tree is 30?!
I had a grapefruit fully girdled by rats I think last year. Leafed out beautifully, made fruit and then crashed last season.
As I understand it the tree can send nutrients up but not down. So the roots try their hardest by ultimately starve and die out.
I had an apple tree that rabbits chewed all the bark off, so I thought. It turned out they only chewed the top layer and managed to leave the xylem underneath. The Apple Tree then grew a new bark over the xylem and it continues to live to this day a decade later. I thought for sure it was a goner
As someone with extremely bad porcupine problem in our area that have been killing off 50+ year old trees…. For the big trees it takes 2ish years to die, not sure about small ones.
Young trees have active heartwood that moves nutrients, so I would imagine that’s what’s keeping it alive right now.