Is my eucalyptus dormant or dying?

sue3841

Hi. I have a mature tree about 10 metres tall, located in coastal Victoria Australia. Probably e. leucoxylon or similar. Following 45 degree heat and strong winds all its leaves turned brown overnight. It's now been 2 months and there is no sign of new leaves. I have been watering it regularly since this happened. How long should I wait for it to recover, and is there anything else I can do to help it along? We are into autumn here now, so I'm not sure if I could expect any signs of recovery over winter anyway. I really don't want to lose this tree. Please help!

TrevMcRev

Welcome to TreeWorld!

If the tree was in very good health before the heatwave in early Feb here in Vic it should recover with some new foliage and be OK.

That said, many affected trees have already pushed out new foliage so at a guess yours may have been quite drought stressed already in the lead up to that event. Eucs as a species were generally the least affected by the actual few days of intense heat, other that those actually burnt in the fires.

If you can safely get to the height of any twiggy parts a scrape test will tell you what is still live. Anything live, even though there is presently no foliage has the ability to come back still.

Water and woodchip/leaf mulch 50-100mm thick out to or beyond the dripline/spread of the canopy would help.

Dont prune off anything yet unless you are absolutely sure it is actually dead.

Pics would be helpful