Unraveling many factors in the death of a tree
- John Lorson: The Rail Trail Naturalist
- April 11, 2023
- 715
It was a set-up that’s become all too familiar over the past year. March had spent its last two days proving the old “in like a lamb and out like a lion” adage by drenching the area in a half a month’s worth of precipitation.
Once the rain stopped, the wind took over. What resulted was a classic lesson in aerodynamics and leverage. With most of the deciduous trees in our neighborhood still waiting to bud for the season, the evergreens were left to bear the brunt of the storm.
I watched from my window as my neighbor’s Norway spruce fought to remain standing while relentlessly buffeted by 50 and 60 mph winds. Things had changed considerably for this particular tree in the past couple of years beginning with the removal of a massive elm tree that had been rooted about a hundred feet away in another neighbor’s lawn.
Tall and graceful with a canopy that shaded the better portion of three back yards, the tree had come to so dominate the landscape that sun-loving plants nearby — including those in a once-thriving vegetable garden — were left struggling for survival. The elm’s owner made the tough and expensive choice to take the tree down in hopes of shedding a little light on her struggling pollinator plantings and berry patch.
The prairie plants were thankful for the big break and went on to flourish as never before, but collateral damage was brewing. Three healthy, mature spruce trees just north of the property line now suddenly found themselves facing a number of unforeseen perils.
First, having spent their entire lives in the mild half-light behind the much larger elm, the focused intensity and heat of the summer sun, all day every day, interjected a visible degree of stress. Needles on the south face of the trees were visibly bleached and became brittle to the touch. And while the needles were being broiled, the roots of those same trees suddenly found themselves standing in a soggy bottom.
By sucking up enormous amounts of moisture from the area within its dripline, the elm had been running interference for the spruce trees and other plants nearby that are typically quite happy to have their feet comfortably high and dry. Without the elm’s constant efforts at moving moisture from the soil up into the foliage and back to the atmosphere, the area surrounding the conifers now lay sodden for long periods of time. Wet feet coupled with excessive heat are two stress factors that can add up quickly.
By the end of the second summer, the center spruces’ bookend brothers had dropped their needles entirely and stood dead against the sky. Wind would prove the final straw. Aerodynamics choses winners and losers with savage abandon when it comes to a windstorm. As so many of us have witnessed in the aftermath of last summer’s derecho winds, the biggest, healthiest, most foliage-heavy trees were the ones that took the brunt of the wind-loading and toppled, root balls and all, while the naked trunks of dead Ash sliced through the wind like wire.
Our “last man standing” spruce was not only heavy with needles when the winds came calling, it was also footed in the soil equivalent of a sopping bath sponge. With no neighbors to help shed the wind it took it all. I watched a gust ride it right down onto the roof of yet another neighbor’s garage — the final chapter in a series of unfortunate events.
If you have comments on this column or questions about the natural world, write The Rail Trail Naturalist, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email jlorson@alonovus.com. You also can follow along on Instagram @railtrailnaturalist.