Category: flora

quercus macrocarpa

Light requirement: tree grows in full sun Soil tolerances: clay; loam; sand; acidic; alkaline; extended flooding; well-drained Drought tolerance: high Aerosol salt tolerance: high Soil salt tolerance: good Outstanding tree: tree has outstanding ornamental features and could be planted more--

Grows in the 48 contiguous states. This one is in a tree tube. Planted ten in April.
Wikipedia

lack of water

dying trees

Yellow poplar (Liriodendron) is notorious for shedding many leaves during summer droughts, sycamore (Platanus) sheds some leaves, and buckeye (Aesculus) may shed all of its leaves as drought continues. On the other hand, leaves of dogwood (Cornus) usually wilt and die rather than abscise. If water becomes available later in the growing season, some trees defoliated by drought may produce a second crop of leaves from previously dormant buds. Many times these leaves are stunted.–Dr. Kim D. Coder

These three trees planted in 2009, a swamp white oak and two sycamores in Riverview Park, need water. Trees are like dogs, or children, if you plant two inch caliper ($100) trees, they have to be cared for until their root systems are established.

According to Dr. Coder’s article these juveniles might still have a chance…

Acer saccharinum

robin on her nest during a thunderstorm
We had a severe thunderstorm in Charlottesville last Thursday. It snapped power poles, uprooted trees.
The robin made this nest in a 120 year old silver maple. The dread silver maple.
Outlawed by municipalities around the country. Experts say it is a weak wooded, weedy, infrastructure trashing tree.
Sure enough, this tree lost limbs, is that weak wooded or smart?
Instead of hanging onto all its limbs and blowing over in one beautiful piece,
it dropped a few limbs and lived.
Sister robin protecting those youngsters. Mommas all right.

thunderstorm

sycamore leaning with the wind
We had a storm yesterday afternoon, cold air falling six miles down out of a cumulonimbus, making for a straight line Dorothy Gale experience. Busted many trees. These trees lean with the wind.
ht ferron, night
here in the hinterland we run our utilities in the air. It is the cheapest way. Akin to keeping our inventory of used motor parts in the front yard. After a wind, some trees fall on electric lines. The solution? Cut down the trees? We are cheap. If we could run the sewer lines in the air we would...

utilities

Blessed darkness. Night at night. Nary a streetlight in my part of town. Power lines down. The rise in the distance, Monticello. View from Sunrise Trailer Park.