Tree shedding leaves in May. Worried.

[LlamaDave]

Just moved into a new build with a lovely wooded area to the rear. Past few days the tree (Sycamore?) has been shedding a lot of leaves and im concerned furniture health.

 

Attached are some photos of the tree, shedded leaves and healthy leaves.

 

Any advice? Isn't just because kfnthe warm weather or something more troubling? Thanks.

 

Ps. There's a fair few leaves btw, this is what's dropped overnight.

Edited 7 hours ago by LlamaDave
Added photo

[Ruskins Trees]

Liam

 

The dropping of leaves is  a sign of stress. The tree is stopping losing moisture through transpiration, to compensate for the struggle its roots are having.

 

On a new build the soil is likely to be compacted, this is sufficient to stress a tree.This restricts the gaseous exchange by the roots and the percolation of moisture into the soil.   

 

In addition the soil levels  may have changed, which will again stress the tree. 

 

Root damage may have occurred during construction.

 

Please post a picture of the trunk as it enters the soil to see if the soil level has changed.

 

We have  had a very dry April and start to May, but not sufficient imho for leaves to drop as a response to heat or lack of moisture. 

 

Mulch the tree, to 3" deep, as wide as you can, keeping the immediate area around the trunk clear. This will not solve the issues, but will help.

 

 

 

 

 

[LlamaDave]

48 minutes ago, Ruskins Trees said:

Liam

 

The dropping of leaves is  a sign of stress. The tree is stopping losing moisture through transpiration, to compensate for the struggle its roots are having.

 

On a new build the soil is likely to be compacted, this is sufficient to stress a tree.This restricts the gaseous exchange by the roots and the percolation of moisture into the soil.   

 

In addition the soil levels  may have changed, which will again stress the tree. 

 

Root damage may have occurred during construction.

 

Please post a picture of the trunk as it enters the soil to see if the soil level has changed.

 

We have  had a very dry April and start to May, but not sufficient imho for leaves to drop as a response to heat or lack of moisture. 

 

Mulch the tree, to 3" deep, as wide as you can, keeping the immediate area around the trunk clear. This will not solve the issues, but will help.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks. The builders seems to have dumped a pile of clay soil near the tree which may not be helping.  Their construction is probably 7m from the trunk. 

 

Here's a couple of photos of the trunk and surroundings. Thanks for your help.

 

Edited 6 hours ago by LlamaDave

[MattyF]

Yeah …. What ever has gone on around the bottom of the tree has caused that. 
never change the soil level around a tree. 

[kram]

It doesnt appear the soil level has greatly changed as you can see the buttress flare, But that is freshly dumped clay so perhaps the roots have been disturbed or cut.

 

There are lots of old pruning, flush? cuts mid way up the trunk. Theres also bark damage quite low.

 

[MattyF]

Are you on acid or blind kram  ?  , look at the picks man , the whole entire root system looks like it can’t breath through the at least 1ft of claggy shite spread around it. 
the trunk looks like it’s been hit with an excavator too along with bundles of torn out roots everywhere, it maybe difficult to tell exactly what has gone on with photos but it will be the cause of the trees problems.. my advice to the OP would get a consultant off the arb association web site local to you to do a report on it if you want it to stand up in court. 
 

[GarethM]

I'd be more worried about what they're going to build next than the state of the tree.

 

Developers don't just randomly leave 20ft of perfectly flat ground for nothing, guessing access road for phase 2 considering there's no garden gate and the panels are attached from the outside.