Why would a river birch tree lose part of its leaves mid summer and then have them come out new again?
2006-09-14 07:36:52 · 4 answers · asked by C 2 in Home & Garden ➔ Garden & Landscape
Drought. Bugs eating it. Disease. Lots of causes.
If the new leaves that came out are healthy, then whatever caused it most likely was transient and will do it no lasting harm. A tree can be entirely defoliated, and recover.
2006-09-14 08:11:41 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Anytime a tree is extremely stressed for water it will drop it's leaves as a measure to conserve what water it has. The stress can originate from lack of rain or watering. It can be excessive heat causing evaporation from the leaves. And occasionally it can be caused by diseases that clog the vascular tissues that take water up the plant.
This last one is obviously not the case or the leaves wouldn't have come out again. River birch like a lot of water so your (temporary) problem could have been lack of water or too much heat or a combination of the two. Once the conditions became favorable again the tree leafs out again.
You'll see this response in dogwoods a lot too.
2006-09-14 16:11:31 · answer #2 · answered by college kid 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I have a mature river birch (Betual nigra) in my front yard. It was there and mature when I bought this house 22 years ago. In drought it will drop some leaves but not enough to change the canopy. No, it does not regrow leaves after this stress. Right now it and the neighboring tulip trees are shedding some stressed leaves but there are still plenty of green leaves to drop in the normal season of autumn.
2006-09-14 17:12:56 · answer #3 · answered by primer209 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Lack of water
2006-09-14 15:04:42 · answer #4 · answered by aussie 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋