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Not sure if this is relevant but this is the top.

pull back the soil near the trunk ... and find out how deep the root flare is ...

how big was the transplant ...

last pic.. i see edging brick ..how close to the house is this ... i wouldnt have one closer than about 30 to 50 feet from the house

it is not normal ...

any chance its on the SE or SW face of the trunk ... where are you ???

ken

Hi Ken, thanks for the reply.

- The root flare is about a 1/2 an inch below the soil.

- I bought it from Lowes 4 years ago. I believe it was in a 5 gallon pot.

- I have edging around all my trees. The Willow is planted more then 50' from my house.

- It's directly on the west side of the trunk.

Also, I'd like to add that I did see some ants climbing my willow. A few were going into barkless area. Could this be a insect/pest problem? I've never had any issues with insects in the past and I've never had to spray my plants with anything.

Willows commonly get cankers and grow over them and rinse and repeat with all sorts of problems. They usually can outgrow everything until they get old.

Thanks for the reply Ikz5ia. I kinda thought it might be a canker from the pictures of it.

I want to spray my trees with some sort of insect control spray. I planted a few costly trees this year and i really want to take every measure possible to protect them. Is there a insect spray that is sold at a big box store that someone can recommend?

The flare of the tree should NEVER be beneath the soil.

Nor can I in good faith recommend "spraying blind" as a reasonable part of tree care. Do you not realize, most insect species are either helpful to mankind, or at least not damaging? The blanket spraying you seem to want to do is from another time. And that time was much less well-informed on insect and disease issues than is our present day. Never spray a pest control chemical without knowing what it is you are targeting. I'm sorry but that is a recipe for, at best, you wasting your time and money, and at worst, the killing of the very organisms which might have helped control actual insect problems. A very old idea which absolutely cannot be recommended.

The wound on the trunk of your willow could be a "canker" but it could just as easily be the result of mechanical injury. and sometimes, mechanical injuries lead to canker formation. I see much woundwood and callus formation. The best thing you can do for the tree is leave it to its own devices.. No special preparation, even those containing actual snake oil, will help this tree close that wound up. Watering-if it is actually needed-would be helpful to the general wellbeing of the tree. So, if that should become necessary, you could do that. All else is useless......or, in the case of your intended insecticide spraying, worse than useless.

+oM

I have a willow that was planted 10 years back. It grew great for 7 years… its probably 1 foot at the base…. but then it got a canker at the root flare like people are mentioning. After that, it played out just like your story above the canker area… the bark sounded hollow and I eventually removed the dead bark. It has the same healing edges like yours is showing but the canopy above is thinning out and the dead area has gone higher up the trunk. It was a nice tree, but I am planning on it's removal and replacement. It has gotten the willow black aphids over the years… but they didn't seem to slow the tree down at all.

In addition to Tom's excellent comments, let me just add that most insect sprays are not preventative - they either need direct contact or must be ingested so insects need to be present in order to afford control. There are systemic-type insecticides but I still would not advise application unless/until you know specifically what you are treating for. With a few exceptions, most insect damage to trees is cosmetic only and seldom requires or warrants treatment in the first place.

I just used a hose with a thin stream to blast the aphids off. These where always in groups, so it seemed to work fairly well

"The flare of the tree should NEVER be beneath the soil."

In the case of willow, it's not a big deal. These are trees that will root from a stick in the ground and thrive in floodplains that frequently get fresh deposits of river sediments over their root zone (& around their trunk) in amounts in excess of your current 1/2".

The root flare shouldn't be beneath the soil, but 1/2" below isn't going to hurt this willow tree.

nice debate about a 2 year old post.. lol ... ken

I have a weeping willow that also has lost it's bark, as the one in the photograph, I do have iris planted around the tree. Shold I remove the plants?

I have peeling bark, with bugs under the bark and am worried that it's in decline. The tree was planted 15 yrs. ago and doesn't seem to be growing as it should....here are some pic's........

help...!!

planted too deep

does this have much to do with the original post????

Scott, can you post a picture of the whole tree?

You appear to have a big rotting wound on a tree prone to them. Usually these grow as fast as they rot if not faster so they outpace it. Yours is not for some reason.

I am starting to think Weeping willows are picky sometimes.

My neighbor has a beautiful one from a cutting he took in Arkansas growing on the hill behind our houses. Its a decade old and probably 60 foot in spread.

Down the hill where it is wet in his front yard he had a cutting take the same year. A few years later the bottom started rotting and it died. So he took another cutting, same thing. And again. My best guess is they don't like being downhill of the septic? Who knows.

I like weeping willow in the proper siting, but more than often they are planted in bad situations. Saw some growing under power lines the other day, so sad to see them butchered.

I have a weeping willow that has thrived for approximately 5 years. It is about 7 feet tall. I noticed that the bark looked like it had been gouged by an animal or person. The bark has practically been torn or gouged from about 4 feet to about 3 feet down and around 4-5 inches across. I noticed that there was an insect in a shallow cocoon almost see through white attached to the inside a small piece of bark that was hanging half way off the tree. I am going to post a photo of said insect. I need