How long before they scream Ouch!!

I had a tree guy over to take a look and discuss options for my Oak trees that are stressed due to the latest pest to arrive to Coastal New England the "winter moth". He used the phrase if you kick an Oak it can take up to five years before it will say ouch. I am wondering why this seems to be the case with only certain plants. Is there one specific trait that they share? kt

That's a great phrase I have never heard before. I think he is basically saying that with any large tree, stress will not manifest itself necessarily for years after the stress occurs. For instance, a homeowner decides to widen their driveway near an old maple, or oak, or any large shade tree. Construction equipment comes, drives all over the root zone, compacts the soil, damages roots, and then extremely high pH cement is poured.

What happens? The tree does not keel over and die. It stresses. This means that less foliage is produced the following year. Less foliage means less food is made from sunlight. Summer drought comes and fewer and damaged roots cannot keep up with the tree's water needs. More foliage comes off the plant and less food is made. Come fall, few or no new roots are generated. The tree's reserves of carbohydrates are tapped. The following year, the same cycle is repeated but probably more so. Four or five years of this and the tree is really ailing. It may or may not look especially weak to the uneducated eye, but it is. But, more importantly, to opportunist pathogens, the tree looks like the golden arches electrically vivid five miles down the freeway to a travel-weary schoolbus of lumberjacks. So, here come the borers and the caterpillars and leaf-miners and leaf-rollers and blights and cankers and anything else that can eke a living from a little wood or leaves. Now, the homeowner takes notice. "My tree is dying!" And, noticing a bug, he/she points accusingly and shouts, "And that bug is the reason! Let's spray it with something."

But the spray isn't going to help, and it isn't the bug that did it. No, ironically, it was Mr. or Mrs. Homeowner themselves that did it when they chose to widen their driveway. They set the downward spiral in motion with their crazy driveway widening scheme. But because trees are so large and a healthy tree has a sizeable reserve of energy, it can take several years for them to really show visible signs of stress.

Scott

We are certainly seeing that syndrome here this year. Last Oct 10 (2005), we had a huge early snowfall that broke the tops off of many trees that had not even begun shutting down for the winter. It took 4 weeks to get the tree company out here to trim them and haul out the damaged branches. None died immediately, but now we have several that looked terrible when they were leafing out in spring and may even fall over this winter if we have heavy icing.

The picture is from the ice /snow storm last year. That same tree had malformed leaves emerging in April, and looks quite sick now.

Scott,
"But, more importantly, to opportunist pathogens, the tree looks like the golden arches electrically vivid five miles down the freeway to a travel-weary schoolbus of lumberjacks."
What a great analogy!
So am I correct in understanding that the common trait in showing delayed stress would be age? The older the tree the more delayed the stress or are some varieties more prone to react slowly while others are screaming ouch before I can put my foot back down on the ground?
By the way you are a pretty intuitive guy as it happens my neighbor had put it a new driveway directly on the property line so thirty seven trees that I had planted plus existing trees not only had root damage but were sheared. Then along came the winter moth...who spies not only my golden arches but my neighbor has now provided a drive thru!!!
greenjay,
I have never seen snow and ice on green leaves before (just wrong) was this a freak storm of the century or does that happen every so often in your neck of the woods? Malformed leaves sounds pretty ominous to me but I am certainly no expert. What has your plan been are you watering more did you fertilize?
kt

It is not unusual at all for us to get snow that early. Average first snowfall (usually much lighter snow!) is 10/15. We will probably get some later this week. Our last snow may be as late as Memorial Day.

The whole "plan" for dealing with the problem was not in my hands last year. The (former) landscaping contractor was in the habit of waiting until 11/1 to turn off the sprinklers, and they were overwatering on top of that. So of course our trees stayed green, instead of shutting down for the winter and turning colors. The Board (of the Homeowners Assn.) was primarily concerned with getting the fallen branches carted off. No proper pruning was done to prevent further damage later in the winter. We had several very cold weeks in January and February. Most of the roses had severe damage from freezing, and I suspect the same was true of the trees. The only thing I could do is tell the Board, a year later, that they better have the sprinklers turned off 9/31, unless they wanted a repeat of last year's damage.

Greenjay, wasn't that a mess! We don't usually get the 'wet' snow that we did last year, just happened that some moisture was pumping in, the same time the Canada cold front came in. Usually, it is a very dry snow. Out here in Aurora, the city set up a dump site for tree limbs. No exageration, it was 4 blocks long, about 20 feet wide and 20 feet high. I alone made 4 trips in my dakota. Funny thing is, my sickly 7 y/o sil maple(I've only been here a year)that had 3 base trunks and ended up with one, grew 4 feet and looks wonderful. My peach, even though it has a big whole in the middle, also grew out extensively(needs severe pruning-any advice). The 34 y/o silver in the frt yd took a big beating, but it has also been drought stressed(previous owners didn't water for 3 years, during a bad drought). It also, had 3 main trunks, but the front and weakest got chain sawed because of extensive damage. Fortunately, I have no cottonwoods around me. You could hear those snapping for a couple of days. Sounded like a shotgun being fired. I think someone was killed by falling limbs, not unlike the recent Buffaloe storm.

"Silver Maples are just Mulch waiting to happen" -- to quote my botany prof. 25 years ago. He was ever so right.

The only fortunate thing about the whole incident was that it happened on Columbus day, many businesses were closed and fewer people on the roads.

It was a reporter for the Denver Post who got smacked by a fallen limb in her own driveway.

Yeah, and I got about as many loads of mulch as I delivered in debris. Free wood chipping, sorta.