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| I was driving in downtown Olathe when I noticed that leaves were landing on my car. When I drove by the park that was put in a few years ago, I noticed that half the trees looked dead. The trees in my neighborhood look fine and I started watering the two youngest ones, once a week. Anyone else noticing the same thing in there area? |
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| It say severe drought for my county but the chart and data are not accurate. |
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| Various diseases cause leaves to drop as well. But that will affect certain species, not everything. If you're seeing a general yellowing and loss of leaves on trees, it's probably a reaction to drought and heat. I remember back in July of 1988 when we had extreme heat and drought, driving from Detroit to Columbus, Ohio, where it had been even hotter, and the further south I got, the worse things looked, many, many tree species had yellow or brown leaves at the base of the twigs, with the live leaves more to the tips, I guess their way of just trying to survive. |
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| Various diseases cause leaves to drop as well. But that will affect certain species, not everything. If you're seeing a general yellowing and loss of leaves on trees, it's probably a reaction to drought and heat. I remember back in July of 1988 when we had extreme heat and drought, driving from Detroit to Columbus, Ohio, where it had been even hotter, and the further south I got, the worse things looked, many, many tree species had yellow or brown leaves at the base of the twigs, with the live leaves more to the tips, I guess their way of just trying to survive. |
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| This is from the other week. There are pockets of more extreme drought. For example the monitor blends in areas but in reality it could be much worse dependent on how the isolated storms are hitting. Its much more extreme here than south and north of me by 20 miles. The hilly terrain with rocky/sandy soil doesn't help one bit. One more week and it will be 75 days with 0.55" of rain. I found out the reporting station on weather.com for my zip code is 8 miles away and not accurate what so ever. No wonder why the forecasts for April freezes where way off. Weatherunderground lets me select the station and the closest one is 3 miles away. Trying to figure out which one AccuWeather uses as that one is much more accurate. This week is going to be the dagger for farmers in my area.
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- Posted by wisconsitom 4/5 WI (My Page) on Sun, Jul 15, 12 at 12:24
| Yeah, even up here near GB, we're talking 98 F. tomorrow. Sheesh, enough already. +oM |
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- Posted by gardenapprentice none (My Page) on Sun, Jul 15, 12 at 14:10
| heat and a combination of drought conditions make it bad for trees. Then the trees' leaves turn different colors dropping. It's a self-defense so they don't loose the remaining moisture. |
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| Actually, what struck me is the tree that are dropping their leaves and ones that aren't. Two sets of trees. One surrounded by a parking garage, sidewalk and the street, leaves everywhere. The second set across the street, surrounded by building, nice amount of grass, limited sidewalk and the street. Leaves are green and still attached. Well at least this week we will be under 100F so that's somewhat of improvement. |
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- Posted by toronado3800 Z6 St. Louis (My Page) on Mon, Jul 16, 12 at 2:55
| Whaas, I share your pain. My rain gauge shows .13 inches in what seems like forever. Our pop up showers have been soo spotty. The St Charles County guys on here have received rain I have not, heck, the airport and my mother in law's ten miles away have received two "days" of rain I have not. FWIW, this extreme drought/heat this year are a great teaching tool on what stresses trees. I am noticing areas near pavement and even small changes in elevation have many more trees dropping leaves than other areas. Same with an ash which sprouted up near my dark red shed, one we transplanted in the middle of my neighbor's yard is showing considerably less stress as are my remaining large one and the tree line volunteers. SO I am ASSUMING the shed is retaining heat which bothers the tree. |
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| How much rain do you need to end your drought. Here is the answer. I am located in the 15+ inches of rain are required. Just read a report that state of Arkansas as a whole is the driest it's been since 1925. But honestly, I think that was a week ago before rain fell in much of the SE half of the state. Arkansas was ALL purple last week.
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| Wow this is sad. |
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| Ark, what does that really mean? Does it have to do with getting the water table back to a normal levels? If it rained a couple inches the plants would be back in business temporarily until the next time it rains. It just confuses me as there are areas that are "further" behind over lets say a 90 day period against one area but has had more rain in the last 30 days compared to that same area yet is considered to be in a more severe drought. I probably just have to do some research as to what factors are all used for the drought monitor. |
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| whaas, I don't pretend to have a complete understand nor claim any great expertise. But I will try to explain my understanding. First from Wikipedia: Understand that say 9-12" is does not mean the same everywhere. At my home, nearest I can tell the annual average is about 51", therefore 9-12" would be approximately 20% average annual precipitation. Now look at SE Colorado. Colorado Springs (in the news lately) averages about 16" annually. So their 9-12" equals approx. 65% of their annual precipitation. So their 9-12" is actually worse than my 15"+ unless the real number for my area were about 30". As for my area, if you go back to June 2011, the weather has been unusually dry and hot. For the year 2011, the nearest recording station was above the average of ~48" for 2011, but that was due to the fact that 27"+ fell in 6 weeks (including 15"+ in one weekend) in spring. From June forward, it was drought and extreme heat for weeks, reaching 110F (equaled the all time record high) in early August, with basically zero rain since May. The local mature trees were defoliating and dying in large numbers after the subsurface soil moisture was depleted. In fall the weather was wetter, but still drier than normal. This has continued through winter, then spring, and now summer. The trees never got the chance to recover, before this years increasing drought has set in with high temps (though not as hot as last), but just as importantly, the subsurface moisture WAS NOT replenished over the fall/winter/spring. Currently the nearest reporting station is 10.61" below average for the year. Just 60.6% of the average, and 4" of that came in one slug in March, mostly running off. Without going to to more details about runoff etc., I consider our "effective" (i.e. did some real good) at about 10-11" for 2012. Frankly, I have been drier than that reporting station. Then add to that, even when it does rain like it did about 10 days ago, it comes down fast and hard, so much runs off. Then what doesn't run off gets wicked from the surface soil to the very dry to considerable depth subsoil. So in short, and inch of rain during this time, does not go as far as an inch of rain during normal soil moisture levels to depth. Then the last insult, is the very dry air, with lots of wind during the hottest days. One of the days that got to 101, the dewpoint was 48F (temp had to get to 48 to reach saturation) with wind gust to 30 MPH. That is HARD on even watered plants. the result...Grown Post Oaks are dying (one tough tree), 2' trunked sugar maples are scorching and/or developing some fall color, same for red maples, LARGE adult Loblolly Pines are dying, etc. You get the ideal. That is how it's been for most of the state of Arkansas for the last 14 months. BUT, as bad as it is, it's still worse in areas of the West, nor does it change that many of you are having your own difficulties. Hope this helps, |
Here is a link that might be useful: Palmer Drough Index
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| My area is not in the drought category, but noted as unusually dry on a map of the US and some of my trees are dropping leaves. I even hooked up the hose-train and watered lots of trees, some that are spewing their leaves all over the place, dispite my watering. I gave my London plane 10 minutes of saturation to the dripline expanse and some of the Bugleweed zone. We are due for more rain, but this London plane and some oaks are letting some leaves go, not lots of them but a noticeable amount, alot of these trees had more moisture previously and aren't used to the drier than usual and 90's temps. Well, my Texas live oaks are feeling right at home anyway. |
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| I've been watering my nongarden trees for 30 minutes once a week. But starting next week will start watering twice a week. Only had a couple day this week when temp has not been 100 degree or higher. Will also need to water my foundation since there is no rain in the forecast for awhile. |
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| YES, It's Rainnnnnnnnnning. |
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| poaky1 6 Pa (My Page) on Tue, Jul 17, 12 at 22:47 Poaky, it's been rather dry & hot here on the Mason-Dixon line, but no symptoms of trees dropping leaves, other than mall parking-lots. Even my lawn is still in good shape (but another week of heat/drought will change that). Got a local Tstorm yesterday with .40". 20.7" for the yr so far. Most of my oaks/hard pines have reasonable second-flush growth w/o watering. |
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| I've got 2 Ear Trees rooted and potted. They're about 3-4 feet tall, just since April. And suddenly - over night -all the leaves fell off the shorter one, and a few fell off the taller one. I happened to put about a tablespoon of 6-6-6 fertilizer on top of the soil in each pot, and it rained heavily that night. Within the next day or so is when the leaf drop happened. Could that fertilizer have caused the leaf drop? Other than that, they have been growing rapidly. Any ideas what might have happened? And will the denuded one come back? |
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| Poaky, 1.6" yesterday evening from a slow-moving line of Tstorms. |
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| Beng we've since my last post gotten lots of rain, I'm not sure on our totals yet but 2 days of heavy rain and 2 of slow light rain, for a short amount of time. I'm sure we got enough here and if what we got went your way too, we're both good for a while. The grass was the most affected by the dryness, and it's looking greener. I don't care about the grass though. My oaks were good but I watered them in between rain events. The Sycamore in my neighbores yard and my London plane were dropping the most. The Sycamore has been there since 1996 when it was part of our property and I planted it, and it still was affected by the dryness. The London plane has been there about 5 years, I watered it After the leaves started falling. Sorry for rambling, but next year I'll try to not water unless there is a serious drought or the trees will never adapt to drought, the trees that have been planted for a while that is. |
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| Glad to see thing improving for someone. Grass has been dead since EARLY May. Hot (102 today, and 107 just to the south) and windy again, with lower dewpoints. Drying the hell out everything that I water. I'm watering now and will be for the rest of the weekend. 11 inches below normal for the calendar year and counting. :-(( Arktrees |
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| We got about 2 inches from the rain on Wednesday but are good 10 or more inches below where we should be. It was 102 yesterday but today it only got 97 so I spent a couple hours outside. |
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