I know when planting new fruit trees, for most of them, it is reccomended to keep all weeds away from the rootzone so the tree doesn't have any competition. Guavas can be fast growers and heavy feeders, perhaps for the first few years, keep the rootzone free of any competition. As the tree gets better established, maybe incorporate other plantings at that point. Another possibility, put small potted plants under the guava for now? Just some thoughts, hope it helps. -Ethan

Is the tree already down? If not, ask the tree cutter to leave a six to 10 foot high stump and apply tree killer to the cut top. You can then grow vines up the stump, hang ornamental pottery on it, put a bird hose on top, put garden sculpture on top ..... If the stump is low, apply tree killer(to prevent root shoots) and put a table top on top or a bird bath on top or a planter on top .....

Does it have any small bodied pests? Perhaps aphids? If so, the wasps may be collecting them or their honeydew.

There is significant overlap on the list of plants to avoid digging in the fall and the list of plants recommended to be sweated. It's quite possible the plants recommended to be sweated could benefit from fall planting, but NOT if you dig them in the fall...spring dug b&B, or container. I can't say as I've heard, or pondered, the question phrased in this way. I can say, I plant more plants in a week than most people do in a lifetime, and my list of plants that prefer fall planting would be as outlined above. Last winter, I sat in on a presentation about producing maple sugar. My background is horticulture, and before that dairy, so the maple world is new to me. What surprised me was that according to the narrative of the presentation is that just about everything I thought I know about tree biology and seasonal behavior, based on a horticultural education and years of experience in nursery production, was apparently unknown to the post graduate degreed staff of one of the only maple research centers. Which begets a series of questions about how do we know what we think we know when it comes to woody plants, physiology, seasonal behavior, and similar tangents. Before this morphs, let this be stated...the presentation was from the head of the Proctor Research Center, attached to the U of VT, and was specifically re: the new production system using high density plantings. This was the end result of a experiment supposedly designed to test how sap flowed in trees, specifically sugar maple, in the spring. So how much of the narrative was in telling a story, how much was just people pondering what could be done, and how much was truly unknown, I have no idea. But the idea of sitting in a presentation where people with advanced in plant physiology supposedly didn't know one of the basic things about tree physiology really makes we wonder how we know what we think we know. The truth is, there is a lot we think we know. No one is going to repeat every experiment on every plant...there may be that many people looking for research projects, but there's not going to be the funding for it. So what we know about this species, based on specific research, is going to be extrapolated. Which ultimately gets us to the current question, or more specifically, the application of the question in dealing with sassafras and persimmon. Ultimately, I'm not sure the nuts and bolts research has been done. If the answer to the question does exist, it's possibly buried in obscure journals that only exist in the bowels of research institutions. More likely, bits and pieces of the answer are locked away in the brains of individuals such as the head propagator for Johnson's...or Sherman's...or Bailey (yeah, I know the ownership of the two)...or Forrest Keeling...or one of several dozen other nurseries or research centers (specifically avoiding Monrovia...never can get a decent answer out of them unless it's how many they want to sell me). So at some point, we get to questions that people ask, and it's possible that question has never been asked to the right person before. the right person would be the one who is going to draft a grant proposal that gets approved to do the research. Could this be such a question? Perhaps? That's a topic in and of itself, and the kind of esoteric discussion best held in the rarified air of Colorado...and soon, maybe a state near you.