Sue Kidd is the Lifestyle Editor at The News Tribune and the ringleader for the Home&Garden section. She is a decent vegetable gardener, but occasionally a tragic mess at growing other stuff. She’ll blog about gardening events, gadgets, her weird obsession with guerrilla gardening and all her assorted garden disasters. E-mail her with thoughts/rants/questions/bizarre observations. sue.kidd@thenewstribune.com.
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Reaching into the reader question bag this morning, and here's what I dug out:
Greetings from Eatonville!
Last year I bought a healthy yellow weeping willow with 3-inch caliper base and planted it our yard. It thrived all summer and came through winter in great shape.
Around March this year, I noticed some movement amidst the branches and when I went to investigate, a sapsucker(red-headed) flew out. In a matter of days he had a series of holes drilled, in a spiral, at the top of the trunk, I would estimate at least 100! Of course, I noticed a battery of ants as well. My solution was to:
1) Circle poultry netting as high up the trunk as I could
2) Cut tin plates into spirals and hang them from the lower branches(the sapsucker has not returned)
3) Place tanglefoot on the trunk of the trees to stop ants
4) Sprayed the ants and their aphid herds with soapy solution (branches are now clean of insects)
5) water profusely when it's hot out.
The leaves of the willow are slowly shedding and a third of the leaves have turned a light yellow. About half of the holes have "healed", but some remain open and
have a blackish interior. The trunk above the "holes" has bulged somewhat, while the trunk below seems diminutive. A fungus seems to be appearing on some leaves as well. Is this tree a "goner" despite all we have done? What might you suggest as an additional course of action?
Ugh ugh, ugh. It sounds to me as if our reader has done everything he can, doesn't it? And it's a lot more than I would have done to save a young willow (I would have just visited the Watson's fall tree sale and got a new one. Bad, I know). Anyone have any thoughts? I'll nose around with some of our arborists and ask them when they think.
Until then, post comments/thoughts here.
Update 7/29: I had a brief e-mail exchange with Dennis Tompkins, our former arborist columnist and our go-to tree guy. His opinion? Our reader has done everything he can to save the tree. Dennis officially gives us a shoulder shrug. Sigh.
Good luck, poor sick tree. Our thoughts are with you.
