Hi, this is my 1st post. There's so much energy and information in this forum that I'm hoping someone will have an answer about why the bark on my Seiryu is splitting. The tree is 8 years old and has grown quite well. I have attempted to show the spitting on the 2 attached photos. Should I leave the splits to be dealt with by the tree itself or this there something I can do to help heal them and/or prevent any more? Thanks so much.
Hi there-- I had precisely this problem, and with a Seiryu, too. Here's my understanding of the issue: many trees, especially palmatums, seem to be susceptible to an assortment of vascular fungi. When a tree is infected, the disease tends to extend linearly--along the branch, from base to tip. It kills the vascular tissue; the dead area is often visible as a dark purple or black area. Sometimes it encompasses an entire branch--the black bark completely encircles the branch. In this case, it's as if the branch has been girdled, and the whole branch dies. What you are seeing here is a sign that the tree was infected in the past, but recovered. A vertical strip of vascular tissue was destroyed, but the tree overcame the affliction on it's own, and over time the tree is closing the wound from the sides. New vascular tissue is forming--we can see it in both pictures, and as this grows the two sides will eventually come together. On this forum, this disease has sometimes been called "tight bark," because it appears that the new growth is splitting the bark. In fact the outermost layer of bark has merely been covering the area where the vasucular tissue was killed, and eventually it flakes away. This doesn't necessarily mean you're home free, though. My experience has been that once a tree is infected, it's more likely to become infected again. Watch for new areas of black bark and wilting leaves. I wrote another post not long ago about an approach I've used to fight an active infection on a treasured tree. Worth a try, perhaps. I checked my Seiryu today, and it's doing fine--after three or four years, it has almost fully recovered. The other post is... here: At one time, I was losing my most beautiful tree, a Seiryu, branch by branch, to this disease or one of its cousins. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I tried a radical approach. First, any branch that was entirely girdled, all the way around, with the black "bark of death" I cut off. It's dead. A branch that is girdled only partly around can perhaps be saved. I cut off ALL of the diseased bark, the full length of the infected area, with a single-edge razor blade, cutting back to healthy green cambium. At the time, it seemed very extreme and desperate--on some branches I cut off the bark two thirds of the way around the branch, for a distance of several feet. My goal was to leave no obviously diseased tissue on the tree. I don't know if cutting out the diseased tissue did the trick directly, or if what helped was the tree's own defensive response to debarking. But the tree has recovered fully, despite some rather massive scars (which are slowly closing). Might be worth a shot, anyway. Good luck! D.
Daniel, Thanks so much for your help and advice. I admit I never noticed any areas of black bark on the tree but I'll pay more attention in future. Perhaps this disease is a result of a shock the tree had a number of years ago when thieves made off with several of my plants. They tried to take the Sieryu, left it half dug up in middle of November and I scrambled to replant it the best I could. It seemed to be okay after that but maybe there was a delayed reaction. I've attached a picture showing it last year. It's central to my garden and I would hate to lose it.
