Forest Heart Local Native Plant Nursery

with Tree Surgeon Tony Wootton, our local arborist and author, meeting the Hinterland's tree needs since 1996

Iam still flabbergasted by the amount of rain we received last year on the Maleny plateau.

As the kids would say, I am still “trying to deal“… And so apparently, are the trees!

3.69 metres were measured in a rain gauge on one of my clients’ fence posts on Avocado Lane. That is almost 4 m, which is the third highest annual total since records began to be kept by Europeans in the late 1800s. And some of the months last year were actually record months.

We are feeling the results of this still, as some of the tree species are struggling to cope with the resultant abundance of luxuriant summer growth. Particularly species from more temperate climes such as pecans, Carya illinoisensis, and liquidambars, who do not have the appropriate tissue structures to hold these rapid increases in weight.

Typically, it is the long, more horizontal lateral branches that tend to snap, along with tight angle forks and other structural imperfections which act as failure points under the increased mechanical loading of the massive amount of extra foliage. In other depressing news, there is a strain of Phytopthera, a root rot fungus, that is targeting our Bunya pines, Araucaria bidwillii.

It first appears as brown, dead spots in the canopy as the foliage begins to die. It then takes one or two months for the whole tree to die.

If it is your thing, you could pray for the survival of this species. At this point, they need all the help they can get.

Mobile: 0403 467 664

Mobile: 0403 467 664

Landline: 54 944 917 www.twtreesurgeon.com

Landline: 54 944 917 www.twtreesurgeon.com