Hi poppy, a 30yr old Rhus typhina with the original main stem, wow you have done well, would love to see some pics...would help ith the accuracy of the recommendations to.....what have you been doing to control the large number of suckers this species produces ever year, just pulling them out?
Staghorn sumac is another one of those shrubs that has tree envy, although it is very attractive when it fruits and the autumn colours are beautiful. Many growers in the US control the sucjering habit by enclosing the plant inside a strong root barrier and this eventually leads its decline assuming this is not the case for you though. Many plants in the US do fall prey to Verticillium wilt but you wouild have to suspect this is as a result of declining health and vigor in the plant itself...the description of the kino weeping through cracks sounds like a symptom of Verticillium wilt.
The wet weather you've been having shouldn't have resulted in the demise of your plant since they are very, very tough groing in both arid and wet conditions...their natural habitat includes stream and creek banks as well as scree slopes...very broad!
I would suspect that the plant is losing vigor and as a result becoming more and more susceptable to environmental pressures. My advice would be to start taking suckers as new plants pot them up, or place them a little distance from the existing plant.
Some growers do cut back their plants very hard to just above the ground every 2/3yrs and enjoy the cycle of coppiced regrowth together with the suckering spreading habit.....but I suspect that you have not been doing this and are very happy with your little tree.
Removing large volumes of live tissue from your plant now will force it to commit massive amounts of stored carbohydrate to the effort to reproduce its canopy futher denuding the already low levels of energy for tissue maintenance and defence...ie the result would imo be the more rapid demise of the plant.
If there are clearly dead or diseased branches remove them and do not leave such material on the ground around the base of your plant. You could try, once the weather dries up a little, applying a dilute solution of seaweed extract 40ml in 20lts twice a week over the root plate. Beyond that without photos of the plant there's little more I can usefully suggest.
__________________ Sean  Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
- Kahlil Gibran
|