Why is My Tree Dead?
Some tree species live longer than others. Those that grow slowest generally have longer life spans than trees with rapid growth. When you are selecting a tree for your garden or backyard, you’ll want to include life span in the equation. When you ask questions like “why did my tree suddenly die,” you’ll want to first determine the tree’s natural life span. It may simply have died of natural causes.
Reasons for Sudden Tree Death
Most trees exhibit symptoms before dying. These can include curled up leaves, dying leaves, or wilting leaves. Trees that develop root rot from sitting in excess water usually have limbs that die and leaves that brown before the tree itself dies. Likewise, if you give your tree too much fertilizer, the tree’s roots are not able to take in sufficient water to keep the tree healthy. You are likely to see symptoms like leaf wilting well before the tree dies. Other nutrient deficiencies also show up in leaf color. If your trees show yellowing leaves, you should take notice. Then you can avoid having to ask: why is my tree dead? If you find your tree is dead all of a sudden, inspect the tree’s bark for damage. If you see the bark eaten or gnawed from parts of the trunk, it could be deer or other hungry animals. If you see holes in the trunk, insects called borers could have damaged the tree. Sometimes sudden tree death causes include things you do yourself, like weed whacker damage. If you girdle the tree with a weed whacker, nutrients cannot move up the tree and it will die. Another human-caused problem for trees is excess mulch. If your tree is dead all of a sudden, look and see if mulch too close to the trunk prevented the tree from getting the oxygen it needed. The answer to “why is my tree dead” might be too much mulch. The truth is that trees rarely die overnight. Most trees show symptoms that appear over weeks or months before dying. That said, if, in fact, it did die overnight, it is likely from Armillaria root rot, a fatal fungal disease, or drought. Severe lack of water prevents a tree’s roots from developing and the tree can appear to die overnight. However, the dying tree may actually have started to die months or years before. Drought leads to tree stress. This means that the tree has less resistance to pests like insects. Insects can invade the bark and wood, further weakening the tree. One day, the tree is overwhelmed and just dies.
