The weird change in my neighborhood park that nobody warned me about

Over the last 2 years I've walked my dog through Grant Park and noticed the oak trees got way more sparse on the southern side near the creek. I think it might be from some construction runoff that happened back in 2022 but I'm not sure. Has anyone else seen trees dying off in their local park and figured out what caused it?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_faith26d ago

OH wow, I actually noticed the exact SAME thing at my own local park last spring! I did some digging and I think you might be mixing up the cause a little. That construction runoff in 2022 was probably part of it, but the REAL culprit is usually something called oak wilt. It's a fungal disease that spreads through tree roots and from beetles. The trees on the southern side of creeks ALWAYS get hit first because the soil stays wetter there and the fungus loves that. I had an arborist friend come look at my park's trees and he said the combination of the runoff weakening the roots and then the oak wilt moving in is like a one-two punch for the oaks. You should definitely call your city parks department, because they can test for it and maybe save the rest of the trees before it gets worse.

shane_fisher3726d ago

Did you notice if the grass around the base of the trees started looking weird before the leaves thinned out? That happened at the park near my house and it turned out to be compacted soil from people walking their dogs off the path. What actually worked for me was getting a few neighbors together and we went to the city council meeting to ask them to put up some signs and a little fence around the worst trees. I think what @the_faith said about oak wilt is spot on too, because we ended up having an arborist come out and he confirmed the same thing about the wet soil making it worse.

patriciah5125d ago

My neighbor had the same issue last year and it turned out to be just some bad drainage from a broken sprinkler line, so I'm not sure it's always that serious, @shane_fisher37. Did the arborist actually take a soil sample or did he just look at the trees?