Please help me save my poplar tree!

dannysporea

Hi,

I bought a home last year and I have a big tulip poplar tree in my back yard. It was doing fine last summer and it was intact, but starting this winter the bark started coming off and it looks like it is becoming hollow. I was looking for buds now in the beginning of the spring, and they are present, so the tree is still alive. I had a couple of persons coming to look at it, and they are saying that possibly it was struck by lightning, and that's why I see the decay and that it should be removed. I would really like to try to save it somehow! Please let me know if there is something that can be done. Pictures follow.

Thank you very much,
Danny

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dov

I haven't been able to check the density of the timber, but it really doesn't look good. I'd go with the advice that you have already been given and look at removing the tree.

It looks like some sort of fungal issue and the speed of degradation in the tree's condition is quite worrying. Better to take it out while it's still climbable.

windthrown

Yah, it looks like the cambium is gone. Once that happens, the tree may still bud out and the top will stay alive, but the top will suck the life out of the roots and they will die. Then the top will die.

glennak

The upper dead strip looks like it was caused by bad prunning. There appears to be a branch broken at the top of the dead patch and a flush cut at the bottom (which has removed a lot of trunk wood). So this section of bark has starved to death. Is the other lower dead patch in line with this?
The tree lopper is the worst pest there is as far as tree health goes.

Garry Brockley

The tree was lopped, hacked, topped what ever you want to call it in the past, this tree has been in decline for many years not just this winter, the decay in the photos is well established, from the pictures i would say take it down before it gets too bad to climb and costs more to remove or remove the top and keep the main trunk for habitat, owls and other birds love the hollows.

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dannysporea

Thank you all for the replies. I don't understand though how could so much damage happen in such short amount of time. I swear the tree was intact (not even a little sign of damage) last summer/fall and nobody was hacking/cutting/puning the tree for sure since last March... So there is really nothing that can be tried to save it?

glennak

No
Liriodendron tulipifera wood rots very quickly so it will fall in the not to distant future if you don't remove it.

windthrown

There is probably nothing you can do to save that tree. With the bark peeling off like that the cambium will die for sure if it is not already dead. With no bark protection from the elements, rot will get to it pretty quick. Cut it down before the roots die or the wood rots though. Or as other have said, cut the top off and leave it as a standing snag for wildlife to use as a home. I would cut it just above the open crack there about where the circular dead patch is. Too bad poplar is not very good firewood, but it will burn. As a snag, it will rot out pretty fast.

Farawaytree

Gidday Dannysporea,
If you are so certain that the tree looked intact last Summer/Fall, then this is my take on it.
This Tulip Poplar may have LOOKED intact to your eye because the outer bark layers have been intact with the now obvious rot, smouldering away on the inside, until now!
The stress fracture has been there for sometime.
Lightening could have been the culprit. We had a huge pine 45 -50m near us go out with a bang 7 years ago. But it blew out a hole at ground level where it exited the tree. The tree was dead within 2 years.

Looks like the tree should come out. And fast!
If you want a replacement go for an "Advanced tree".
They cost a bit more but you will get to see it grow in your lifetime!!
Farwawaytree

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"You can always plant a tree"

windthrown

I have never seen a large tree planted that did very well. I sell and plant at the largest 5 gallon trees. Why? Becasue they do a lot better, and in most cases will grow to the same height in the same time as much larger boxed or burlap balled root trees will.

Poplars grow incredibly fast. Plant a 5 gallon tree and stand back! Not that I would recommend planting a poplar tree anyplace. Or its cousin, cottonwood. My parents planted a row of poplars at the house I was born in near here, and they are still there. Monster trees. There are pleanty of fast growing trees that will do nicely in very short time. If it were a maple, you could cut that tree to the ground and select one sucker and it would be 30 feet tall in less than 5 years. Maples have a million sprouts, and they grow fast. I suppose you could do the same with a poplar, as I have seen it done with black cottonwoods here. But if you do that, do it before the top of that tree sucks the life out of the roots. Once the are dead, that's it. No regrowth. Which also may be what you want; we girdle trees that we want to kill, roots and all. Cut a 2 inch strip out of the bark and cambium around the base of the trunk, and wait a year or two. Top dies, that's it. Roots are dead then too. You can cut the tree down and there will be no suckers or sprouts.