Anything I can do to save it?

Impossible to tell with paucity of info provided. Pix help.

(Dan keyboard macro a+1).

Dan

maybe a canker? If it does die, and you haven't planted your row with a close spacing, then next spring, prune off a branch off one of your others and plant it where this one died.

need pix.. check out the link

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Darn, I thought I had done this last night.....let me try again...
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The bark splitting is an indicator that is nearly gone. Doesn't look savable from here with provided pix IMHO.

Dan

Yeah, that looks pretty severe, make sure its well-watered and has been fertilized. Also, notice there is no mulch, so if its not drip irrigation along it, then that's a problem in itself. Soil needs to always stay moist. Though the positive, looks like its already growing over it.

Hard to tell from the pics, but if its girdled all the way around and under the remaining bark, then it is gone, and its best you do a salvage mission. But if there is a strip still alive, then it has the potential to outgrow it.

I'm not familiar with "Australian willow" -- the bark does look like some Salix I've seen.

If it is a true willow, they have pretty amazing regenerative properties. Any chance you could cut it off and let it regenerate from the stub, a "coppice" type tree?

Its a Geijera parvifolia - Australian-willow, not Salix. Different animal altogether. Start planning for a replacement, as that sound you hear is the fat lady warming up her voice.

Dan

Thank you everyone. It is too hot to start a branch now but I guess we will do that this fall and also cut it back and hoipe it regenerates below the split.......

If the person's zone is correct, then it is salix. Also, looks just like my hybrid willow's bark, and typical same problems that mine would outgrow and a pic of it
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People call the hybrid willow from the New Zealand program Austree, Aussie Willow, Australian Willow, and various other names.

It is in theory, never too hot to start a branch. I just had storm damage last week on a weeping willow, cut up the branches, so no leaves or fine branches on them, just a stake and planted, and buds already forming...have to keep them watered.

I think success would be better with semihardwood cuttings taken now rather than waiting for fall, but not sure.

But if it is an Austree, disregard, cut down now, and consider yourself lucky it died now. Bark looks like Geijera from what I remember, been a few years now.

Dan

Wrong location for Geijera, USDA 6 would be somewhere in eastern WA. This is part of the intermountain region, with sharp winters. We don't even use Geijera in USDA 8 western WA.

Ah, you're right. Memory and deadlines don't mix.

Cut that thing down today and be thankful it didn't get bigger and explode on a building, dog, child, car, shed, picnic, fence, property. No rooting. No cuttings. No regrets. Windbreaks far away from property it is fine, yard trees it is not.

Dan

Well then, the good news is that it is a windbreak, and while near a fence, the wind is in our favor. On the far side of the pasture, too.

Also, these hybrid willows seem to naturally have multiple trunks, so if any of yours are doing that, prune them off at a young age, so the lifespan of them is not shorter than it needs to be. I notice most people never correct this simple thing to prolong their life, and have things like this happen.
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Has the potential to get big fast, especially near water, as I am standing by a 20 year old one.
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Without a doubt, this hybrid willow clone is my favorite tree that I can grow.