Question
Hi Jim, I have had a beautiful chinese weeping elm in my front yard for about twenty years. In the last few years, I have noticed that it has not filled out like it use to and seems to have more dead limbs than usual. I now realize that my ignorance may have damaged my tree. For most of those years, I fertilized the surrounding lawn with milorganite. But, for the last several years I have used weed and feed. I now know that was a big mistake. What should I do to try and counteract the effects of the weed and feed? Should I trim the dead limbs? Maybe deep fertilization would help? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Gene Young

Answer
Not really much you can do. Pruning the dead limbs will make the tree look better but will not help the health. Fertilizer right now will encourage new root growth but with thw herbicide in the soil the new roots would pickup the herbicide and fer trellising would be bad. About the only thing that can be done is water a lot of water. Tis will help flush the herbicide out faster. I would water with 1 inch of water--place a pan under the tree and turn the sprinkler on and when the pan has 1 inch of water in it stop. I would do this every third days for a couple of weeks. Then you will just have the wait and see if the tree can recover. I will say that usually one years of Weed and Feed is not too bad but multiple years can mean death to a tree. Of course this will depend on the health and age of the tree and the soil type the tree s growing in. Sorry hope the tree recovered.