The Borers Return With a Vengeance

When walking out to the barn the other day, I glanced up in the canopy of trees that border the eastern edge of our property and immediately noticed a troubling sight - the leaves to three of our oak trees have turned brown and are dead.  This happened so fast it made out heads swim.

Let's back up a bit.  We've lost four water oaks in that same location over the past several years.  The eastern edge of our property was once a shady grove and now, well, it's not so shady any more.  There are some pecan trees in the "grove" that should enlarge their canopy now without the competition, but I don't like to lose trees.  We'll use the wood for firewood and all, but still, I'd rather have a live tree providing shade for the animals in our hot summers.

If you look around the bases of all the affected trees, you can see sawdust.  I Googled it and found that the culprit is something called the Red Oak Borer and the water oak is in the red oak family.  I've blogged about it previously HERE.  It doesn't seem to bother other trees from what can gather.  From talking to a knowledgeable tree expert, I learned that water oaks live for only 70 years.  I've read elsewhere that they live for 30 years and then die for the next 40!!  That's a more accurate way to state it, I guess.  Well you can see the dead/dying trees below.  It looks like fall, but it's not.

It ain't fall.

So here's my plan.  First, I'm going to borrow a chainsaw from my Dad and cut the trees down.  It will be mighty tricky, though, as the tree on the left in the picture below leans precariously over the garden fence.  The tall one on the right below is right near the barn.  I think I'll have to use a come-along to pull the tree in the direction that I want it to fall.  This project is not going to be for the faint of heart. I'll tackle that within the next month before limbs begin falling.

I'll then cut the trees into firewood sized pieces and then split it all and stack it for firewood to be used over the next several winters.  It is hard to even think about firewood at the tail-end of June, though.

Finally, I read that to treat borers you should spray permethrin all over the bark of the base of the tree. I'll have to purchase some of that and spray the remaining water oak trees in the grove to keep from losing any more of them.  I should have done this before, but there's always something else going on and I was negligent in not taking care of business.

Borer Damage

Hopefully, once the remaining trees are treated, we won't lose any more as those trees cast a shadow over the garden until almost noon, allowing me to enjoy shady mornings in the garden on the weekends.  Darned Borers!!