Hi u/Dunkadoobar, we just wanted to thank you so much for your advice. We made a mulch ring and watered, and our tree has recovered and seems to be in great shape. Just wanted to follow up and thank you!!
That’s great!
Thanks for the info! Do you think if we create a good mulch ring and water appropriately there is an opportunity to salvage?
Try bending a few twigs to see if they are green and flexible or dry and hard. If some are green, Give it a shot! Rip the grass out with your hands for 1-2 feet around the trees. Try to take the grass roots with it. Water heavily every week or so but make sure it’s not pooling against the trunk.
If all the twigs and branches are dry and break easily, she dead.
Thank you, we will try!! Really appreciate the insight and advice.
We had a tree guy plant a pair Honey Locust shade masters in late April. We live in Denver, the tree gets some shade in the morning, but pretty full sun most of the day. It’s been a pretty rainy late spring/early summer until recently, and we just turned on our irrigation earlier this week. One of the two trees had been doing great, until a few days ago we noticed ALL the leaves rapidly turned yellow/brown. We gave some extra water bc it’s been incredibly hot/dry (high 90s for the last week or so). We just had a brief storm, looked, and now all the leaves fell off (and no other trees on the block were damaged by the storm)! We can’t identify any obvious damage to the tree, like a canker or crack. The ground underneath is not saturated with water. When planted, both trees were bare branches. The other tree had about 1/3 to half of the branches dead, but this one seemed very healthy. The tree with many dead branches seems to be no different over the last week.
Any thoughts? Is our tree totally dead?
Some more photos and comments: https://imgur.com/a/SCK9YvZ
It’s planted way too deep and likely didn’t get enough water. The trunk flare is where the roots begin to show and it must be visible or the tree will not be able to breathe fully and is susceptible to diseases in the bark that is buried. Grass will consume most of the water and nutrients that a tree needs so it’s best to leave a few feet of good much around the tree that can be watered deeply.
Whoever planted did an exceptionally terrible thing to those trees.