3 ms·
The "close cousins" thing is interesting for me. I live in a tree-lined streets neighborhood. Historically, they chose species on a street-by-street basis. My s
by beat 7y ago
The "close cousins" thing is interesting for me. I live in a tree-lined streets neighborhood. Historically, they chose species on a street-by-street basis. My street was all linden trees for the curb trees (except for a last remaining elm, we've lost most of them to Dutch Elm disease). A few years back, a severe wind storm took out seven of the curb trees on my block, in a cluster (and smashed a few cars in the process).
Rather than planting more lindens, the city put in a diverse new collection - I think every one is different. Our new tree is a hackberry. Our next door neighbor got a japanese maple, and there's a buckeye across the street, etc.
So now I'm wondering what that means for the long-term health of our scrawny little hackberry. I don't know of any other hackberry trees in the neighborhood - the dominant species are lindens, maples, walnuts, ashes, catalpas, and a few ancient elms. Within our yard, there's a big old ash, a catalpa, a sumac, a magnolia, and a dogwood.
Oh, and I live in an urban forest, apparently.
- abugheratwork 7y agoI don't know about your hackberry in particular. This has been a topic of fascination for me, though. Trees connect to each other via symbiotic root fungi called "mycorrhizae". Any given species of plant probably has several species of fungus with which it is compatible. The fungus and the plant form a mutually beneficial pair, but the fungus can additionally connect to other nearby plants. Then you have a network, potentially with multiple plant species. The network can be used for nutrient storage (summer to winter), nutrient transfer (to offspring), or chemical signalling. ("Bugs attacking. Get ready.") Different species are known to support each other, giving nutrients back and forth and different times of year. Of course, the black walnut will use the network to poison its neighbors. Playing in my flower pots, I have observed that plants growing right next to sweet potatoes or succulents do better when I forget to water them, but I haven't measured that. In my mind, they're leaching water from their neighbors through the network. So, it's complicated, and there is such a thing as a bad actor on the network, but basically I don't think your tree will be lonely. I'm optimistic.
- hinkley 7y agoRoots of the same species can fuse directly. It helps canopy tree species grow up inside of an already closed canopy, and similar to mycorrhizal networks, can spread around sugars and water.
- wavefunction 7y agoHackberrys grow very quickly, you can water them and watch it grow like a weed. They also fall down in storms. I removed one from my yard and will be planting an Eastern Persimmon instead.
- beat 7y agoMine still looks pretty sad and despondent after a couple of years. I hope it's beautiful someday, but for now it's pretty dull next to its glamorous Japanese maple neighbor.
- abugheratwork 7y agoWell, check on soil quality, maybe add compost, check water supply, maybe add a dripper, check that the soil isn't rock-hard, so the roots can get around. If you want to know exactly what the tree needs, though, research is probably in order. OK, here's a pretty thorough guide to the hackberry: https://homeguides.sfgate.com/special-care-hackberry-tree-56609.html https://homeguides.sfgate.com/special-care-hackberry-tree-56... Sounds like you should keep crap off the trunk so it doesn't rot, it needs to be pruned to grow right, and if the soil gets dry it will start dropping leaves about it.