Why I Oughta...

This post marks the third tree that I'm filing as LOST for this growing season.  The first one was in July when a newly planted Lombardy Poplar didn't make it but a couple of weeks .  Then, one of the kids (not sure where they live!) ripped off the growth on my contorted Larch .  Today, I'm calling our Dappled Willow as dead.   Planted in the Spring/Summer of 2019 , the tree was a copy of a Dappled Willow that we had in Elmhurst.  That, first Dapple Willow was a wild success and both Nat and I loved it.    It seemed to come back this Spring - surviving the first Winter - and budded out in April .  But, then something happened.  Might have been a late frost?  But, it died back.  The tree tried to keep growing - and sent off some VERY LOW suckers, but that only lasted a month or so.  Today?  The tree looks like this: Dead and gone. 52 trees across four planting seasons. With this loss (3rd of the year, there are (For now...) 43 of those trees still alive. 2017 (9 planted

I was out watering some things and noticed that the Horstmann's Recursive Contorted Larch Tree that I bought and planted earlier this year is now gone.  It is now just the tiny trunk.  Seems someone yanked at it and pulled the limb(s) right off as I found it laying next to it.  Bummer.  My fault for not putting up a barrier around the tree to protect it.  (Note to self:  protect things from rabbits AND kids going forward.) It was a TINY tree, but now it is in the LOST column.  I posted about the Lombardy Poplar that I lost last month here .  Two in a row - not good. This Horstmann's Recursive was the 51st tree planted.  51 trees across four planting seasons. (For now...) 43 of those trees still alive.   But there are signs of trouble on a number of other trees (including some of our apple espalier trees, two of our Chanticleer Pears, the Red Valley Sun Maple and the Crimson King Maple).  That would knock us under 30 trees on hand and more than ten trees lost.  More

This is one of my neighbor's Ash trees.  They have a half-dozen or so that have are dead and still standing.  The photo above is striking for two reasons:  the worm-like pattern that is on the tree is the most noticeable.  But, look closer:  see all the holes?  All over the tree?  That's from the Emerald Ash Borer and why the tree is dead. Here's a closer look at a couple of the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) holes on this tree: There doesn't appear to be any of the Borers hanging around as I presume these trees were killed years ago when the Borer first appeared in Illinois.  The Morton Arboretum suggests that the Emerald Ash Borer is so pervasive that it expects that EVERY Ash Tree in Illinois will be killed .  EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.  What happens when all the Ash trees are gone?  Will the Borers move on?  Fly somewhere else?  Just die off?  Or, will they adapt to the environment and start to attack other species of trees?  That's terrifying. Here (below) is