Hmmm i cant upload pics now. I hit the photo button and nothing happens. Hopefully you guys can see the pic links above.

nope.. cant use PB under the new method ...

you hit the little photo icon below the box you type in.. and load them directly from your hard drive ...

mention where you are... when you get the pix up ..

ken

Ok I fixed it... I couldn't do it from mobile so I had to fire up the lap top

First pic was taken with flash second pic taken without.

When I cleaned up fallen leaves in the fall this is what I found. I assume it was because I didn't clean up the leaves and mulch that fell down the hillside and go trapped behind the trunk, heavy rains came, and caused some rot?

The rot looks pretty deep...can't tell if it's spreading...should I just get rid of it?

the injury occurred at least 2 or 3 years ago .. based on the amount of healing ...

it would help to ID the tree ... know where it is ... and know if it threatens anything ...

trees heal themselves.. by encapsulating the wound.. which it is doing now.. the trick is know if it can do that.. before the interior core rots ...

but the ultimate decision is about your head ... are you the type who wants to watch and learn ... or do you have some other need for that space.. and are looking for an excuse to be done with it ...

if it were out on my 5 acres.. i would watch ... if it were next to my favorite garden chair.. it would probably be gone very quickly ... life's too short to look at that mess ...

as i said.. they heal themselves.. do nothing FOR it ... painting or gooin it.. will trap moisture inside the plant ... and probably speed interior rot ...

i highly doubt it had anything to do with season leaf litter ... that is a major wound ... more along the lines of someone backed into it with the car .. which of course i doubt on your hill ...

how long has it been there.. could it have been damaged prior to point of sale???

ken

hmmmm... i saw your title... its a SMALL JM????

i need a scale ... my small jm's are 8 inches tall.. what exactly are you calling small... it looks like a 6 inch diameter tree???

can we see a pic of the whole???

i am further wondering.. if it was severely pot bound.. and planted w/o root surgery.. and it is basically strangling itself underground???

it doesnt look telephone poled at least ...

ken

It's about 6" in circumference at it's widest point at the base, and a little over 3 feet tall. Hopefully these pics give perspective. The wound is on the side that faces the fence, so I can't see it unless I climb the little hill and look, which isn't all that easy for me to do.

I have only had it for a year. I planted it right away when I got it with a load of other trees that arrived by truck on a pallet. I bought it this size from a very reputable online seller. I don't think it was pot bound, but yes this could have arrived this way and I didn't notice it.

What are your thoughts based on the additional info I have provided?

So this is a old wound that is healing? Not rot? I can leave it be and it won't get worse?

The stupid local kid who once cut my grass cut a huge gash in a larger but still immature JM with the flange on the mower deck, I guess. I was sure it would eventually die, and in the second year it looked sorta necrotic like yours. It took a few years but eventually the thing completely healed over. These are very tough trees as long as they are generally satisified with growing conditions and climate. I'm curious, do you know off hand what variety of azalea that is, with the pink flair?

Ok that gives me hope! Ill wait to see if it heals!

Top pic left background is autumn twist encore azelea.

Bottom pic, left side is an autumn belle encore azalea. It just finished this round of blooms and it was absolutely covered! i think that is the one You were asking about?

The totally pink one is bloom-a-thon pink.

Encore azaleas bloom all year for me in zone 9

Autumn belle is particularly floriferous!

I always worry about my jms but my azeleas and camellias have performed fantastically!

That is a very robust shrub being only 2 inches in diameter. In time, the tissue will cover up the injury (as long as it is not re-injured), the inside will rot, and stem will be hollow and the outside will look more-or less ok. If it lives long enough, it may be hard to tell from the bark there was an injury there. Since the tree moves most of its nutrients and water just inside the bark, the tree should continue to do well. Structurally, it will be weak for a few years, but the more years of growth it puts on, the stronger it will become., No treatment is far better than any treatment.

Thanks kjmm. The "Encores" have not proven as hardy as once claimed - of course they are fine for you in zn 9. But it's good to know about that one.

Good comments have been offered by the gentlemen above. Now if only they would stop using the word "heal" in describing how a woody plant deals with injury. I've mentioned more than once on here about the fact that wounds on trees never "heal" but that they do get walled off, both physically and chemically, in a process known as "compartmentalization of decay in trees", which is admittedly a mouthful. But there's got to be a better way to put this than something which is outright misleading. We don't tolerate such things here if discussing, say, planting depth, or pruning techniques, or......

But the word "heal" just keeps getting used where it doesn't belong. If anybody actually wants a more detailed explanation of this process-and its implications, which are many-I can go into it. Otherwise, look up Alex Shigo for a general primer on this matter, and then, a lot of detail, should one be so inclined to take all that in.

+o<

Just like resin losing his cool over the use of the layperson's term "Cedar" for a variety of non-Cedrus species, I think this is just another case of semantics. Guess what? No human turns their dead visceral tissue back into living either. But doctors still speak of a flesh wound healing when, yes, it is compartmentalized, surrounded and eventually replaced by living tissue. I suppose in mammalian physiology there might be a bit more recycling going on. We have proteases, I don't know that any plants have lignases or at least not for dealing with dead tissue. (but sometimes those proteases are inadequate, and papain used to be used for wound debridement)

That being said, I appreciate your input on the matter.

Completely wrong, davidrt. And I'm not losing my cool. Maybe a little exasperated, but losing my cool?

When you cut your arm, your body literally replaces any damage cells with new ones. Woody plants do not and can not do that. They can do a bunch of other things, but not that. Then, idea that two different processes, two different meanings, should have the same word assigned to them is a new one on me.

+oM

Well, you're losing your cool now! LOL. Look, if you want to go on a crusade to stop plant people using the term "healing" - be my guest. Good luck with that. I personally have always been on a crusade against unnecessary scientific pedantism. (which is very different from necessary scientific pedantism) I never said you were "incorrect" - I guess you took it that way. I just pointed out the layman's definition might never be scientifically correct, but that doesn't make it invalid in the context of normal home gardening activities.

You and anyone else insisting on this distinction is confusing spatial displacement with functional replacement. Sure, the dead bark of an injured plant is never physically replaced at those exact coordinates in space-time. But the function it served is completely resumed by other, living tissue, and the organism can in many cases go on living as though nothing had happened. You're making the argument for: "The (?), idea that two [completely] different processes, two [completely] different meanings" - which is not the case at all. Healing: it's a physiological response that allows an organism to keep living. Simple as that.

And, actually, FWIW, the comparison to Resin was poor on my part: in the sense that Resin had a genuine concern that on an international forum, there could be misunderstanding about what "cedar" actually meant. We use the term in the eastern US for Juniperus virginiana, presumably in the UK they do not.
I am *very glad* you've corrected us on the way plants compartmentalize injury. I apologize if I seemed to be challenging your explanation, which I completely agree with. However, by using the term "healing" I doubt anyone is actually going to think the injured tissue is completely replaced - at the exact same point in space-time - by non-injured tissue. As happens in animals. BUT, I'm glad you've clarified for all us now that that is not the case. I will continue using the term "healing" in any context where it is logical to use it. Compartmentalize is a hassle to type.

Well then I see, you are a master of passive-aggressive writing on hobbyist forums. Super! By all means, do continue to mischaracterize an important-perhaps the single most important- aspect of woody plants which distinguishes them from all other plant forms, their ability to wall off wounds.

BTW, since you are so up on my mental state, are you the guy watching me through my computer's camera? And the computer I use at work? You are a crafty fellow.

+oM

No, I'm not passive-aggressive, I'm persuasive. There's a big difference.

I had found this BEFORE I started replying to you yesterday, but didn't consider it necessary to post until now.

The Biology of Horticulture, 2005 John Preece, Paul Read (pg 179)

"If frost cracking occurs year and year, the crack then reopens annually. With repeated healing, a longitudinal ridge forms, which is called a 'frost rib'"

That took me all of 30 seconds to find in google books. Might I suggest you grind your axe with these two gentlemen who have PhDs? I'm finished with this aspect of this thread.

So you found a guy who like you, doesn't bother to use proper lingo when describing technical aspects of a subject. That changes everything!

+oM