Black Willow

[newfinn]

I have a black willow tree in my front yard that has all of a sudden (this spring) developed a lot of new sprouts on its branches. The trouble is that the majority of the branches are brittle and break off quickly. There is only new leaf growth on these sprouts and nothing on the rest of the tree.

We pruned a few of the lower (and obviously dead branches) and noted that the interior of the branch was dark brown in colour. We are assuming this means that the tree is slowly dying, but the new growth is causing us to doubt. We absolutely love this tree, and would hate to take it down.

We're a little naive on tree care....

Any suggestions?

 

[rbtree]

Those sprouts are called epicormic growth and occurs because the upper canopy is likely dead. No growth, brown inner wood= sure sign the tree is a goner. It likely has root rot perhaps caused by a girdling root form while at the nursery, or was planted too deep or watered too much. Plant another and be alert for the above problems. Plant the tree at the proper depth: examine the ball for the first roots and put them at the top. Often there will be dirt only packed higher.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Planting depth is surely a major problem, as RB pointed out, but I'm not clear on how old the tree is, or if it is even a nursery tree.
Willows like a lot of water, and we've had a few drought years in a row, so it could be just a drought response.
It's very common for a black willow to grow fast and strong, then meet a stressor, like drought, and die back. This is often followed by rapid re-growth, all while the light weight, decaying, dead limbs fall.
Here in WI, we see many native black willows growing around most of the inland lakes. When the powerful expansion and contraction of the ice, moves the shore lines, roots are damaged and the tree dies back, sometimes 50% or more. Come back in 5 or 10 years, you'd never know.
Here's where you post a picture of the tree...

 

[newfinn]

Thanks for the info....

The tree is between 15 and 20 years old. We've lived here for about 4 years and have always noted that there a lot of fallen branches especially on windier days.

The tree is located at the edge of our field bed (and at the edge of a wetland area). We did not have a particularly wet spring, so perhaps drought is the culprit.

We will not hasten to cut this tree down this year but will consider planting a new tree beside it - we're just a little leary about what kind of tree at this point.

Again, thanks for the info.

 

[treeseer]

We will not hasten to cut this tree down this year but will consider planting a new tree beside it - we're just a little leary about what kind of tree at this point.

wait for the tree to finish leafing out and then cut out all the dead branches--see Pruning in the link below.

 

[maxburton]

Minor correction

Actually, that growth is probably not epicormic, but adventitious. Epicormic growth is from epicormic buds, which are preformed and latent, growing only enough to stay near the bark. Adventitious growth is from adventitious buds, which form and grow at the same time. For example, the lumpy appearance of many Sycamore trees is clusters of latent epicormic buds that are following the sapwood as it grows. They can be made to sprout if the tree is very stressed, but they often never do. On the other hand, when a topped tree sprouts new growth right at the site of the topping cut, those are adventitous buds. The important difference is that adventitous buds are far more weakly attached than epicormics, and break off more easily, especially after growing for a while. You've probably noticed that some trees, conifers in particular, don't sprout from topping cuts. That's because they lack the ability to produce adventitious growth.

 

[newfinn]

More on the Black Willow

Thanks again for the info...

I took some pictures of this tree today, in the hopes of further describing the problem. However I have been having difficulty uploading them to this site. (Perhaps because my internet connection is a dial up).

I noted that there are about four other (younger) willow trees in the near proximity that seem to be suffering the same fate as mine. In addition to the sprouts I had mentioned, there are also little buds on many of these branches as well. Perhaps those would be the adventitious buds mentioned by maxburton.