They add great shade and beauty to our yard. I'll be interested to hear what you decide, and if you do decide to leave it, let me know when it falls and under what circumstances! Q: We have two large water oaks growing in close proximity to our house. While you're getting up the gumption to remove the old water oak, why don't you go ahead and plant its successor? Bald cypress trees, slash pines, spruce pines, evergreen magnolias, live oaks - the list of suitable, reasonably fast-growing replacements is long. And like all white oaks, it will prove much more resistant to rot and damage than the weedy old water oaks. A newly planted 6-foot-tall swamp chestnut oak - if properly cared for - can grow to nearly 50 feet in a decade. I'd be surprised if that big tree was much over 40 years old. Here's the good news: Trees grow very, very fast in Mobile. And to push this medical analogy to its awful conclusion, what you essentially have is a tree that has lost its supporting skeleton to rot, and there's no practical way to rebuild a skeleton strong enough to support the weight of a giant tree. No one has figured out how to perform open heart surgery on a tree. The "surgery" performed by tree surgeons is, at best, mostly thoughtful amputation, removing limbs judiciously here and there to prevent weak joints. But I should warn you that a tree surgeon is often not much help when it comes to water oaks, and tree surgeons are not particularly good at addressing INTERNAL tree damage of any kind. It's often a good idea to call a certified arborist who has some skill as a "tree surgeon" before removing a tree. So the abundance of these rot-loving ants tells me that the rot is very advanced and very extensive. They don't eat living wood or wood that's even moderately sound. They don't actually harm the tree, they didn't cause the rotten place, and they're not making it worse. The ants you see are likely carpenter ants that feed on very, very rotten wood. Any suggestions? Are there tree surgeons? A: If that were a live oak, I'd say not to worry too much about it - live oaks have a healthy immune system that controls the spread of rot.īut it's a water oak, and water oaks basically have no immunity to rot here on the Gulf Coast, and that means the rot has likely spread extensively through not only the trunk, but also the root system.Īnd given the frequency of high winds here, it's unlikely that the tree will stand much shaking from a tropical storm (that is, if I were a betting kind of guy, I'd bet that a significant portion of that tree will hit the ground within the next few years). ![]() Large ants are seen circulating about.I don't want to lose the tree. It has a "rotten spot" at the base, extending upward 2.5 feet and about 18 inches deep. Closer to home, the New York Botanical Garden has a 275 year old Red Oak growing in the Thain Family Forest.I have a water oak in my front yard approximately 70-80 feet tall. ![]() One tree growing at Blenheim Palace is thought to be about 1500 years old. In Britain, many very old specimens of the English oak ( Q. ![]() Other long-lived American species are holly oak ( Q. The Angel Oak is thought to be 400 to 500 years old. Among them are the Middleton Oak and the Angel Oak, both in South Carolina. Some very long-lived specimens are known. virginiana) can live more than 200 years. ![]() laurifolia), also native to the Southeast, lives 50 to 60 years. The water oak ( Quercus nigra), native to the southeastern United States, lives for only 30 to 50 years and the laurel oak ( Q. The average life span is about 100 - 300 years, but particular species can live for shorter or longer times. The life span of oaks varies according to the species of oak. 10 Botany (Taxonomy, Nomenclature and Morphology).
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