[BCNnet] news articles re trees and drought

[Randi Doeker - Chicago]

>From today's paper - FYI


Randi Doeker, Chicago


 


Recent rains came too late to save many trees 


May 22, 2006 

BY GARY <mailto:gwisby at suntimes.com>  WISBY Environment Reporter 

- Chicago Sun-Times

Jim DeHorn suffered through the big drought of 2005 along with the trees he
advocates for as coordinator of the Openlands Project's TreeKeepers program.


Now the rains have come. Why is DeHorn so glum? 

Because he sees so many trees that didn't make it through the winter and so
many that may not survive another. 

Like a mourner at a gravesite, DeHorn stood by a leafless green ash last
week at the North Park Village Nature Center, 5801 N. Pulaski, and
remembered it in better days. 

"It was absolutely perfect, robust," he said of the tree, which he judged to
be about 40 feet tall and 50 years old. "This time of year you could grab
handfuls of seeds off it." 

An ash is tough -- "It's the No. 1 street tree in the city" -- so this one
must have been badly stressed, perhaps by root loss or compaction, for the
drought to kill it, DeHorn said. 

Other trees are balding -- dying back at the crown, the part farthest from
the roots and starved for water. 

At the Chicago Botanic Garden, moisture-loving weeping willows have
something to cry about. Director of horticulture Tim Johnson is noticing
damage even among willows planted close to lakes. 

Elms and ash also are leafing out more thinly than usual, he said. 

"Don't let your guard down because they say the drought is over," Johnson
cautioned. "The weather can turn. At home, I'm going to be watering my trees
and letting the grass go dormant, the same as last year." 

Gary Watson, senior scientist at the Morton Arboretum, said, "The drought
also opens the door to secondary diseases." 

Susceptible to Dutch elm 

Trees are so weakened that they will be vulnerable not only to the usual
Dutch elm disease and oak wilt, but also to verticillium wilt, a disease
seldom seen here except after parched conditions, Watson said. 

"And we might see a little less growth, with the buds formed last summer
being smaller," he said. 

State Climatologist Jim Angel said the previous March-August period was the
second driest on record in the Chicago area, after 1934. "But the rainy
pattern of the last couple of weeks has gotten you out of the drought
episode," he said. 

That's too late to help the big green ash at North Park Village. Nature
still has a use for it. 

"It will be a valuable woodpecker tree," DeHorn said. "Squirrels, possums,
raccoons and birds can nest in a hollow tree."

 

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