I have a beautiful old oak tree in my back yard (mid-atlantic area)
with a circumference of about 13 feet.
Lately, it seems to be less productive. ie in the fall, it doesn't
drop as many leaves as it used to and in the
spring, it takes longer to reach full bloom than any other similar oak
in the area.

As I'm not prepared to take a core sample, I don't know how far apart
the annual rings are so I can only
make a rough guess as to its age. I'm assuming it's 130-200 years old,
Can anyone verify that number?

Is it's slowness to regenerate a sign of age? stress? or irrelevant?

Thanks

sammy wrote:
I have a beautiful old oak tree in my back yard (mid-atlantic area)
with a circumference of about 13 feet.
Lately, it seems to be less productive. ie in the fall, it doesn't
drop as many leaves as it used to and in the
spring, it takes longer to reach full bloom than any other similar oak
in the area.

As I'm not prepared to take a core sample, I don't know how far apart
the annual rings are so I can only
make a rough guess as to its age. I'm assuming it's 130-200 years old,
Can anyone verify that number?

Is it's slowness to regenerate a sign of age? stress? or irrelevant?

Thanks


I know that western oaks (e.g., coast live oak, valley white oak) cannot
tolerate having non-native landscaping within their root zones. When
people garden within the root zone, the tree slowly declines and dies.
Older trees are more vulnerable, especially "native" trees (trees
planted by nature, not by man). Nursery-grown trees are often unaffected.

A tree the size you indicate is indeed very valuable. If a storm
destroyed it or an 18-wheeler plowed into it, the insurance settlement
could be several thousands of dollars. It's sufficiently valuable to
justify having a professional arborist check it.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 21 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a, very close to Sunset Zone 19)
Gardening pages at http://www.rossde.com/garden/

sammy wrote in news:1179099510.435410.220440
@w5g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:

I have a beautiful old oak tree in my back yard (mid-atlantic area)
with a circumference of about 13 feet.
Lately, it seems to be less productive. ie in the fall, it doesn't
drop as many leaves as it used to and in the
spring, it takes longer to reach full bloom than any other similar oak
in the area.

As I'm not prepared to take a core sample, I don't know how far apart
the annual rings are so I can only
make a rough guess as to its age. I'm assuming it's 130-200 years old,
Can anyone verify that number?

Is it's slowness to regenerate a sign of age? stress? or irrelevant?

Thanks

What's around it? Other trees? A house? A driveway? Is it fighting
for nurishment because there isn't enough free ground area to provide it
with the large amounts of food/water that it needs? Our neighbors can't
figure out why their large old Maple is struggling. There's a house 15'
away, a driveway over half of the root system and four -- count them FOUR
-- very large trees that have roots that come within the old Maple's
dripline. It simply isn't getting what it needs to sustain its size.