Question
purple weeping beech
We have a weeping purple beech which is at least 12 years old and 8ft high. ALl of a sudden the leaves have started curling up. We are in central England and have not had much rain for 3 months, could water be a problem? I have cleared the flower border around the tree but did not think I did anything to the roots.
AnswerThe roots of tree are within the top 1-2 feet of soil. IF you dug down when you "cleared" the flower border you could have damaged the root system. Removing the ground cover did remove some of the water holding "mulch" and if you are in a drought situation this could put further stress on the root system. It seems to be something that was done during the clearing process.
I would check and see if the tree is still alive--scrape a small bit of bark off near the end of an outer upper branch and if the color under the bark is green. Green means it is still alive and it may re-sprout leaves (hardwood trees have the capability to leaves out again if they lose their leaves and are still alive. IF the color under the bark is bot green--brown- then the branch is dead at that point on the branch. If brown continue down the branch scraping at intervals until you find green or reach the trunk. The dead branches can be pruned but I would wait a month to make sure the branch is dead and you did not miss the green. IF you find green I would water with 1 inch of water every third day--place a pan under the tree and turn the sprinkler on and when the pan has 1 inch of water in it stop. Do this every third day for a couple of weeks or until it rains and then every week if it does not rain.
