My beautiful tree is sick. The leaves are all but gone. the branches on one side are bare & the other side?

Question

is starting to die too. i found a bunch of small holes in the bark. like someone poked a pencil into it. there were some small blackish bugs like mini beetles, but they were tiny & too small to hurt a big tree. could a shot gun blast from far away kill a tree? lots of small holes in groups? help.

Update. The man from the county forestry dept is here. he took one look at my tree & starting calling out the troops & extra help. He said it was without a doubt, Dutch Elm disease. Worst case he ever saw & the heat has the beetles real active. It's going to be windy in the morning, so he's called for lights just in case it gets dark before the tree comes down. There must be a half a dozen vehicles down there now. Even the county sheriff is here now.
Great call Garden Doc. The guy in charge just told me if I waited one more day and the winds got here first it could have wiped out trees for a hundred miles or more. They are acting like I am a big hero. Got to sign some papers. I'll tell you more later. If your still around Doc. I can't thank you enough.

update: well after midnight & it's so weird to see men cutting down trees via huge spot lites. they are wrapping all limbs in plastic before loading in trucks. they even had a helocopter out until dark looking at trees all around the area. the county guy said they would have men going door to door in the morning & the helocopter will be back too. thay are making this a big deal. they said if we waited longer it could have become a major disaster area.
I think some people owe Garden Dok an apology. If he didn't make a big deal out of it I wouldn't have called at all. A TV news crew just drove up. Got to go.

THANK YOU GARDEN DOK. thanks to you county & state forestry people located and distroyed 14 trees in my area infected with dutch elm. If not brought to their attention when we did, the head of forestry said it would have become a state wide disaster in a few months. They are still looking, but they think thet got it all, I wanted to let the other two ladies that responded to kmow THEY were the ones who were wrong, not you. Thanks again. (i got on TV news too)

Answer 1

EMERGENCY!! READ NOW! IMPORTANT!

Lady you need to drop everything, get on the phone and call the County Agricultural Commissioner because of the possibility of Dutch elm disease. you need to get an expert out to check that tree right away.
from whan you report those tiny black beetles are EUROPEAN ELM BARK BEETLEs. Forget my bedside manner, your tree is history! And so is every other elm tree in the in the area if you don't act quickly. No joke, don't take a chance. call the city, county, state, who ever will respond the fastest.

are the beetles about 1/8 in long? bark full of tiny holes, as you said, the size of the lead of a pencil? Heck, i don't want to waste time finishing this. just trust me and call somebody now. your tree could be a killer. the same disease that wiped out over one million trees in the us 20 or 30 years ago. entire towns back in illinois & wisconsin were stripped bare of every elm tree. it spread up the east coast killing street after street of elms.

heck with the history lesson, go make that call NOW!!!

Answer 2

First, ID the tree. Then call someone from your local Cooperative extension service or an ISA certified arborist. Chances are, your tree was stressed from some other factor (soil compaction, drought, disease, etc.) and the bugs saw an easy meal. If it is something of concern, like Emerald Ash Borer, a lot of trees will have to come down. If one side died first, it is probably a root problem. Take a holistic look at the landscape and see if there is anything that could have damaged the tree.

Plants get bugs. Most are of no concern. The other factors of a tree dying are worth considering also.

P.S. Elm Bark Beetles tend to stick to the canopy of trees and there was no mention of the blue staining characteristic of D.E.D.

Answer 3

You don't say what kind of tree it is? If it is a fruit tree, it could be borers. My Parents lost a Nectarine tree over the winter to borers. The make tiny pin holes in the trunk and branches.

Take the crazy "Dutch Elm Disease" guy's advice and get a professional out there. But don't panic.

GARDEN DOK: Geez, don't be freaking people out like that. You don't even know if it's an ELM!!

Answer 4

lol... your three is full of insects, like termites, and ants,plus it must have white worms on the bottom of the trunk cause if there is no leaves, those worms already killed you tree. No gun shots of many bullets can kill a tree. So sorry, your tree has no hope. Need to bring it down, before those termites eat your house and the rest of your trees.

Answer 5

yes