QuestionWe have 2 tall Christmas trees at our home in San Antonio Texas, they are almost 10 years old, about 20 feet tall. there was a accidentally fire a week ago and caught one of the trees, it burned mid way up the inside and the top of the tree, the weather and the tree were dry. I am not sure what I should do to save it; let nature take its course and leave the tree alone or trim it or heavily mulch the bottom or wash off all the dead and dying debris.
AnswerI would water it 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. Do this every third day until it rains. No need to do anything with the branches right now. Some may live so I would let it be as is now and if there is not new growth in about a month then you can prune off the dead limbs. New ones will not grow back so expect that the tree will have bare trunk where the fire killed the limbs. I would nor worry with the mulch for this large a tree--the roots should be ok from the fire.