Posted by Dorian on 2/24/2008, 12:43 am
64.178.5.2
There is a beautiful smaller(25 to 35 feet tall) eucalyptus growing in my yard, that was full grown when I moved in 15 years ago. It had been damaged in a freeze in 1989 and was rather miserable still in 93, and had been cut back. Since then it recovered and had become quite full and had 5 tall trunks/stems. We've had a lot of drought in FL for several years, and tho I water it, it is somewhat crowded with other trees and plants and is growing near downtown in a fairly large city so has some air pollution, as well as excess heat to contend with. Last year it dropped one of the trunks, I suppose in response to drought.
Since then it has never stopped dropping leaves and is even dropping the new, small narrow, deep green leaves.
It is currently blooming and its leaves all look good and healthy, tho several of the trunks are arc-ing or leaning almost like a small plant would do when it begins to wilt.Tho they could be leaning in order to reach more light.
Several young live oaks and a jacaranda have grown taller and taken away the wide open full sun aspect it had before but are not directly over it, tho one jacaranda is rooted about 6 feet from the eucalypt and arches away as it gets taller.
Does it sound like my tree is suffering and I need to do something? Or is this all in the range of natural adaptation?
I live in zone 9b, a few blocks from Tampa Bay and here in downtown the temperatures tend to be rather warmer than the countryside, or even the more open and wooded suburb areas around here.
The ground around the eucalypt is planted with many aloe, and frangipani/plumeria as well as some other shrubs and there are potted plants sitting on top of the mulch. It is planted in the area between the sidewalk and the street and between a driveway and an alley so its a challenge to get enough water from rain with all the runoff from the hard surfaces.
My current plan is to dig up and pot some of the aloe and shrubs, add more mulch and turn a currently buried walkway into a semi-swale to catch water running down from the sidewalk, and to prune some of the other trees away from the eucalypt. Any ideas or suggestions would be very welcome!
Message Thread:
« Back to thread