My new tree! - leaf issue?

grilling24x7

Hi,
After my initial post a few weeks back, I decided on a Princeton American Elm tree. I picked it up last Saturday from a nursery about 1 hour away. It's gorgeous.

However, I noticed last night that a few of the leaves are pretty wilted looking. Take note of the up close picture (leaf2.jpg)- dead center - there are two curled up leaves. Any thoughts on why this is? Should I cut them off?

I'm wondering if its a little travel/transport shock sort of thing. The tree was wrapped in a blue tarp (it's about 14 feet tall) and driven around a beltway for 1+ hour.

Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.
Thanks,
John

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Garry Brockley

Thats a beautiful tree, the dead leaves look as if the stem was damaged in transit look at the base of the stem to see if there was any breaks.
you will need to do some pruning once it has established to ensure you get a main leader and reduce the co dominants, this will give you a more rounded healthy strong mature tree.

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grilling24x7

I just went out and inspected the tree a bit more. The stems do not seem damaged at all where the wilted leaves are. Now I see about 10-12 more leaves that look wilted like this and they are scattered throughout the canopy.

Could this be a watering issue? The temperature has been about 40-50 F at night and 70-80 F during the day. The tree was planted on Saturday and was watered pretty well on Saturday and then just yesterday (Wednesday) I ran a hose on it for about 6 minutes over the root ball area.

I hope I didn't screw anything up!

John

Eric Frei

Add some wetting agent, over here we got stuff like Wettasoil.

Read this from about page 32 onwards.

Growing media for ornamental plants ... - Google Book Search

Water more where the soil it came in meets the new soil to encourage roots to grow out.

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grilling24x7

So this is potentially a lack of water?

Eric Frei

I think that and a combination of minor damage, sometimes in transport etc leaves get blasted with wind and their abscission zone is torn but you cant really see it, sometimes some roots are damaged even just drying out.

Cut the damaged leaves off, read that book I sent a link for ... it's really informative about soils and diseases.

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grilling24x7

Ok, thanks. I looked through the book - very informative. A little complex, but may be helpful.

I think I am exhibiting signs of drought and perhaps transfer shock. I did cut a few of the roots in the root ball (it was container grown) as recommended by my nursery and some of the roots were a little large. I thought, "should i really be cutting these?" I think the point was to get the roots to grow outward, and not circular, but maybe that shocked the tree a bit, too.

I got out my "treegator" watering bag and its watering the tree now. The bags at least seem to get the soil very saturated. Hopefully you guys dont have any negative thoughts on those.

Anyway - keep the comments coming - I'm obviously a novice and learn a whole bunch from reading your posts. Thanks....

John

Eric Frei

Treegator!

Get that thing off straight away!

Tree roots dont like compaction and they need air, so all the weight of that bag of water is sitting right close to the stem on the little root system it has .... not a benefit.

Is this the model you have? Looks to be the most evil one they sell.

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grilling24x7

wow - i knew you were goin to say that! It will be removed promptly this afternoon! thanks so much.

grilling24x7

Ok so I'm officially an idiot. I get home and the treegator is still 1/2 full so there was some serious weight on the root ball. The tree was slightly tilted b/c of this. I managed to straighten it out with the stakes and my pushing the dirt a very little bit.

Then I put my hand on the dirt and it moved like jelly! Oh my. I dug away some mulch layer with my hands and the dirt underneath is totally saturated like wet squishy mud. I'm guessing no more watering for a week. I can't believe how the dirt felt like jelly.

The only good news is that there's no new wilting at all. I just hope that my saturated dirt won't do me in. Luckily it is about 86 F and sunny so I dug back some mulch and am letting the dirt dry out a bit.

I didn't think planting my tree would be so stressful. Any more comments are still welcome.

John

Eric Frei

It wouldn't be so stressful if people all sang off the same hymn sheet.

The insatiable desire to sell product and gadgets for money (like treegator) and perhaps employees being judged by the volume they sell not trees they wreck is the problem.

Soils need to be moist, not wet, not flooded.

Pulling the mulch back is good, but beware of a surface crust on the soil, as the soil dries and that surface crust isn't far off put a very thin layer of mulch back .... no watering for a week alright.

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