As I predicted, the first good storm of the year has resulted in quite a lot of tree damage. This prediction was possible because I have spent the last 25 years observing the interaction between trees and weather events on the Blackall Range. What I have observed is that after a prolonged dry spell, the first storm always brings trees down.
The same line up of repeat offenders has not failed to disappoint, with Eucalypts and Cypress leading the pack of species that failed, followed by Leopard trees and Liquidambars.
It makes a lot of sense to have any threatening trees dealt with before the storms arrive, as I have also observed that even poorly pruned trees fare better than trees that have not been reduced at all.
This time a number of very large, mature figs, Ficus sp., whilst not failing completely, lost massive sections, due ultimately to the presence of a harmful fungus. It should be noted that while it is tempting to blame the fungus, not one of the failures of any of the species, was without predisposing stress factors, namely adverse impacts on the root zone.
The Root Zone is precious, people!
In one case we had to employ the largest mobile crane on the sunshine coast in the clean up. Exciting stuff, but please don’t let this be you.
Touch a tree.
