Do Gums just drop branches?

TrevMcRev

I have my opinions on this, but am interested to see others responses.

Ekka mentioning the stigma attached to gums in another thread prompted the idea.

So what do you think about the general publics perception of the hazards of gum trees "just dropping branches" or what some might also call Sudden Limb Drop, or whatever else you think might be behind the fear many have of these trees.

Also, do those outside of Australia that have our eucalypts as exotics, think of them as dangerous trees, to be feared, should only be in parks, not suitable for home gardens etc...

I'm looking for both what you see as the publics opinion to be, as well as what you as an arborists opinion is.

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Ekka

Some species are more prone than others.

Also, as part of the growth cycle shedding lower limbs is common.

Some of the SA court articles showed with the Red River Gums that SLD was repetative for certain trees, chances were if no previous sign of it then it wouldn't happen. Flaw in theory is every tree which had SLD history never did till the first one.

General public perception is not near the house and dont camp under one!

Often, and I mean a lot, people ring and want assurity as to how safe their gum tree is. You get there and there's a 100' gum over the house, nothing really wrong with it, how safe is it?

No matter how safe it is you can make it safer by some intelligent pruning and soil care ... avoid fertilizing as I believe growth on a euc is your enemy. Yeah, I'm way out there with this, just good soil conditions and mulch. Take our eucs to good soil places and wetter like UK or Cali and see what happens, they grow even bigger!

Eucs are open canopied, at times (like right now here) their branches can be over abundant with dense leaves and flowers ... even dropping and hanging, very heavy. That is on the end of natural lions tailed branches.

Bit of wind, bit of dry, bit of shade etc and you get a limb on the roof/car etc.

So, each tree within it's own right will have it's own issues depending on it's environment, but overall, people dont like them near houses.

Personally, neither do I when they are big. The one I recently pruned I'm happy with, it could get 50% larger and I'd still be happy, but if a new estate was built and they saved some 100' grey gum next to my house or a euc Grandis ... no friggin way!

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pomme

we get something similar with beech and oak (fagus and quercus) summer limb drop they look fine and then drop a massive limb without warning

Roller

loads of tree over here drop limbs, horse chestnut, oaks, beech its very common here, it is also known as summer branch drop here.

Roller

I must read previous posts before I post lol

dguntertrees

I also was going to mention summer branch drop in Beech in the UK. seems to me that no tree "just drops branches", there is ALWAYS a reason, it just may not be immediately apparent. Try explaining that to a client with a half metre diameter red gum branch on their roof/car/dog..However, I'm with Ekka on this one, good soil health and mulch help because they reduce the amount of CHANGE in the soil. I.e. keep water/nutrient levels more constant. BTW I've never seen a euc in any kind of trouble in the UK, but then there aren't that many of them. I'd say that they would struggle in fighting off fungal attacks...

groundpounder

Cottonwood and silver maple are the problem trees here. Maples begin the decay process early in their lives mostly due to hail damage. Target cankers on top of the limbs can make for hazards that can not be seen from the ground. Have seen limbs fall out just from the weight of rain on the foilage. In the '70s and '80s the suburbs grew out from the city in leaps and bounds. We live on the high plains, so there were no trees to provide shade for the new homes. How do you get some quick shade? You plant cottonwoods of course, preferably two or three feet from the house. Fast forward to 2007 and they are all beginning to decline. Dead cottonwoods everywhere. A boon for the low bidder. Most worrisome are the ones that are still hanging in there. Codoms and multi stems seem to be the rule rather than the exception, and there is root crown decay caused by thirty years of the irrigation system squirting the base of the tree. Add to that our frequent early or late snow storms while the leaves are on the trees (which I suspect has something to do with why there are no native shade trees here) and the possibility for large branch drop goes way up. A woman was killed a year or two ago while shoveling snow under a cottonwood. If you have a cottonwood or a very old silver maple on your property, this arborist rarely brings good news.