Just as I hit "submit" for my last post, I realized I have made a mistake. When one half of a double trunked tree splits off, it is not necessarily so bad. It depends of the species, and how the two trunks are joined. And what their origin is. To explain: with a black cherry with one half of a double trunk split off, especially if the split is a foot or more above the joining, I would not anticipate much of a problem with the remaining half. The rot does not go from one to the other, except in rare cases where a specific kind of fungus is involved. For an oak tree or an ash, and some others perhaps, the split trunk poses a little more risk. But again, if the split is above the joining point, the odds are better. For red maple, tuliptree, basswood and a bunch of others, after a number of years, the rot will almost always move from the dead broken off stump into the other tree. As for the origin/kind of joining: If a double trunked tree started as sprouts from the stump of a tree that was cut down, there is more likely to be some natural walling off of rot from one trunk to the other. If it was one tree to begin with and the fork developed low down, and then split off, the chances of rot moving from one to the other after a split is much, much greater. Also, is you can see a clear bark ridge or a dividing line (inverse ridge) between the trunks, the chances of the one surviving for a long time after the other split off is greater. This more often occurs when the tree came from stump sprouts or was originally two trees. So, the bottom line is that if some "extreme tree surgery could keep the hole from killing the tree--if it is not too weak anyway--then the fact that one part split off is not necessarily fatal. But the bottom line is that the two things in combination are not at all good. And if rot did move from the broken off tree to the one with the hole, then it would weaken whatever support the one with the hole had and the thing would come crashing down. --Spruce

Bob, Some of the storms you mentioned made it up here in Nova Scotia. We are surrounded by woodlands in our area. Everyone has about one to 3 acres where 1/2 to 3/4 acre of their property is used for the home and gardens, but the rest is all forest. Our trees grown on bedrock so the roots are - most times - not anchored firmly. Some of our neighbours do the chainsaw thing for days on end after wind storms, but others don't and I am so grateful to live adjacent to those who don't. As I look out to the backyard and woodlands, I can see in one area 4 spruces which toppled together last year and are resting at a 30 degree angle. When these trees fell together, the roots came up and created a 'wall'. Where the roots used to be in the ground there is now a small pond where the birds entertained us this past summer with their bathing antics. We drilled holes in the trunks of the trees for our native bees - they hibernate in the holes for the winter. We also did this to trees which were broken at the trunks 5+ feet. Native bees need all the help they can get. :O) But it was the bird population which amazed us this year. The 'downed' trees gave them shelter and with the insect population increasing because of the start of decay, their food source was increased greatly. I applaud you for wanting to leave some to rest. Hopefully you will see the same things we did. :O)

Spruce, et. al. As many of you know, I am new to this area, am learning and have many questions. Question: Is fall leaf color in seedlings fairly consistent as the tree matures? This spring, I planted seedlings of Swamp chestnut oak (Q. michauxii), Nuttall oak (Q. nuttalli), Cherrybark oak (Q. falcata v. pagodafolia), and southern red oak (Q. falcata). The SCO seedlings leafed out first, and turned first - the leaves were mostly orange, turning to tan-gold-buff. The cherrybark leaves are an intense wine red, the Nuttall leaves are a brilliant scarlet red. Today, the leaves on some red oaks are mainly or completely green. Despite a minor hurricane, a long nor-easter, and a drought this summer, leaves remain on all the seedlings, but are beginning to fall now. I recall a discussion about leaf shape, that it can be difficult to ID a young oak because leaves on a seedling can vary in shape. I think the discussion involved acorns Sherry planted last fall. She collected acorns from many locations and was trying to ID the seedlings. This led me to wonder if leaf color is similar to leaf shape - variable in seedlings, becoming more consistent with age, i.e., if Nutall oak seedlings are bright red now, as youngsters, is it reasonable to expect them to be bright red in adolescence or adulthood? I know leaf color differs from year to year due to environmental factors. Last year, despite a drought, we had spectacular color. This year, the wind from the hurricane and nor'easter blew leaves off many trees and left others in shreds. Despite these factors, I'd rank fall color this year as B+ (in the leaves that remained).

Pinetree: Did you try to explain all of this to me once before? I am not sure, but I remember we had a discussion of the summer shoot growth on one of my very fast growing (a lot of growth each year) white pines. I thought it was some growth that developed from a new bud, like an oak tree that puts out a second flush of growth after the initial spring growth. And I think you explained that this growth with the pine tree was different--that it was a summer elongation of the base of the bud that would be the basis for the growth of the following years shoot. Do I remember right? And is this what is properly called "lammas" growth? I think we also had some discussion of the "free growth" that I thought I saw on some NS trees after weevil attacks (maybe), and on some very young seedlings that seemed to put out new needles at the apex of their shoots without any evidence that I could see that it was an unfolding and extension of a shoot that came from any bud, whether that formed the previous summer/fall or had formed earlier in the summer. I can't remember exactly what you said about this kind of growth. I think you may have expressed some doubts about how I understood and/or described what I saw. Now what I was trying to describe in the post above, and incorrectly calling "lammas shoots", and what gnome posted a picture of, seems to me to be something different from the "free growth" I am describing in the previous paragraph. Now my question is, well, two things: first, is this growth that gnome pictures, and which I describe having seen on my own NS trees a few times, similar to what you described as happening with my special white pine tree (and a few others as well)--a premature extension of the basal elements of the terminal bud that would be the basis of the next year's growth, or is it something different? I think you are clearly saying it is something different. And if it is different, I think I understood from our previous discussion of white pine, that this kind of growth can't happen with white pine. And my second question is: if it is different, could it also be different from what I am calling "free growth." It seems different to me in that the free growth I have observed, at least in young NS seedlings, is continuous with the initial shoot growth--there does not seem to be any stage where the growth seems to have stopped and then resumed. It is more like how a tuliptree grows, unfolding one leaf at a time, than how an oak tree grows when it sends out a new flush of growth from a new bud after the elements in the initial bud have fully extended themselves. To summarize what I am trying to get at here--just how many kinds of, or sources of, summer growth are there, "technically" speaking? I am guessing there are three: Lammas shoots, free growth, and what gnome pictured and I described above--growth coming from the full extension of a new growth bud, like with an oak tree's second growth flush, followed by the formation of a completely new bud for the next year's growth. Well, when I started this reply I had no intention of making it so long. Forgive me, but I have a streak of curiosity about such things, but at the same time don't want to make a pest of myself trying to delve into technical issues. Generally I am a man who hates "delving," in any of the metaphorical senses this term may have. I am happy to delve under the surface of the soil to plant a tree. But as for "delving," in the more general metaphorical sense, I know am best off when I remain satisfied with very superficial understandings of things. "Delving," if that means penetrating the surface to gain a deeper understanding, has proven to be a frightening activity for me and has generally lead to confusion. So I do my best, usually, to avoid it when I can. --Spruce