How to stop dieback on Elm

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Sime76
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How to stop dieback on Elm

Post by Sime76 »

Hi All,

I have this Elm with the main trunk dieing back over a number of years. Last year repotted it and was extremely pot bound. This repot seemed to help, but I'm still concerned the die back is continuing.
I was after any suggestions of what to do to??

One idea I had was to plant it into the ground for this season to see if that will help it regain vigour and stop the die back.
Thanks!
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Watto
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Re: How to stop dieback on Elm

Post by Watto »

It is difficult to comment when there is just one photo, however from what I can see I wouldn't be too concerned. It appears that there was some trauma and that the tree is starting to seal the dead from the living tissue - a natural occurrence.
My initial thought was to wait for another season then do some carving on the area.
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Re: How to stop dieback on Elm

Post by Phil Rabl »

I'm with Watto. The bark looks like Chinese elm so I have added the photo below of a Chinese elm of mine that I dug some years ago. It also has a large dead branch (the original trunk) on the top. It's not the most brilliant specimen, but I recently used branch splitters to break up the dead wood and used jinning pliers to tear off some of the dead wood to create a large jin. I will now leave it to rot naturally - maybe shorten it too.

You could do something similar. And you have lots of branches to choose from in designing your tree.
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Grant Bowie
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Re: How to stop dieback on Elm

Post by Grant Bowie »

Give it a preventative spray or drench with a fungicide first and leave for a few weeks and then consider a repot into a slightly larger pot . Check out the roots while doing the repot and do a light root trim.
Even if the trunk is rotted out completely it wont matter in the long run if you can get the tree healthy again . Fertilise consistently during spring , summer and Autumn with liquid feed like Power feed.

Grant
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