Had a look around 9.30am today, was a busy place, main gate boom down so had to walk from road.
Story is 1 Jacaranda fell.
It was the one dead opposite the play area, fell across the road and wrote off a near new Magna (crushed it). Had a person been in the car they'd be dead.
The trees roots were broken.
I have put in the pics I took, large files so you can see for yourself.
With the canopy removed hard to say there was no VTA symptoms, also recent pruning works may have removed dead wood, from memory these trees had large dying leaders ... two across the road were recently removed with ganoderma and die back.
Roots had pockets of punky wood, soft and light as cork, no fruiting bodies. The roots that snapped were in the lawn and windward side.
Other trees were barrier-ed off and checked.
There was a large girdling root, it was kerb side.
What you need to realise is that cars park the entire perimeter of the ring road, then there's paths and pedestrians/joggers etc.
In the 5 years I've been visiting the park I have noticed the decline. The evidence or indicator for this one would have been the crown ... die back.
It wasn't long ago that Jim1NZ and I were in the park and checking it out exactly there. From memory there was a significant leader heading toward the road that was looking pretty sad.
Looking at the roots I'd say the only way that would have been detected was to air spade away say 2m radius and multiple resistograph test. However many trees had some pruning works done etc.
Now a huge shadow of doubt is cast upon the remaining trees. With the target value etc hard call. Also not the first time for tree failures in the park, some poincianas are fenced off, I'm sure a kid got hurt when a large limb failed. I know when we visit the park I sometimes parked near that tree.
Big old jacarandas, maybe 80 years old, maybe 1m dia, maybe 60' to 70' tall .... what the future holds
