Oooo.....wild stab!

Mountain Pine Beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae)

Regarding the same issue as the OP, I have a mature P. Pine that has consistently become thinner over the last two years. I'm very fearful that I will lose it. Due to it's mature age and proximity to our house it will be impossible to replace. Attached are photo's of it and one near by which the the original used to look like. The only thing different in the area that was done was concreting the drive which used to be gravel. I've increased watering by a deep root system and letting trickle for days at a time and moving the probe several times. I have a water feature underneath which could possibly be "over watering" if it had a small leak. Is there any way to tell if a Ponderosa Pine is "under" or "over" watered?

i had 6 pines of similar size.. that close to the house.. and i paid to have them cut down.. the winter after a horrible ice storm.. took the top 7 feet off ...

dont be fearful of losing it.. just get rid of it ...

its a FOREST tree.. planted too close to the house.. and serves no real landscape reason ....

and i always suggest you start your own post ... so replies can be sent to your mail ... instead of the original posters ...

ken

Ditto to Dendroctonus ponderosae. It's been rife across large areas of BC in recent years, causing extensive mortality.

Resin

Just for sake of discussion; We all know nature abhors a vacuum. What do any of you think is going to be moving into all the newly-dead pineland? New recruits of the same species? Firs, Pseudotsugas, or other conifers? Aspen?

+oM

I'd suspect a lot of it will remain grass / herbs for a long time; once established, they will competitively exclude conifer seedlings for a long time. Some Douglas-fir and Aspen might come in at higher elevations, but a lot of the ex-pine area is probably too low / dry for them, or for Engelmann Spruce or firs either.

Resin

I hope you're wrong resin.......but suspect you're not.

+oM

Who says forest trees don't have use in the landscape? I prefer the dense forest look. Give me the choice of a mature beech-maple forest, and a manicured landscape, and I'll choose the forest.

Heh Jimbob, Ken says that! In my world, there's room for both. Hard to go wrong with beech-maple though. A portion of my job is a sort of restoration ecology. I think of it as ecological forensics, in that when "restoring" a piece of land, I will often add those elements that would have once been there but which have since disappeared for some reason. So right now, we're doing a stream restoration in a deep, wooded ravine. Trees range from basswoods to cottonwoods to oaks to sugar maples to black cherries to, uh, white ash to red elm to butternut. Under my direction, we will be adding in some beech, hemlock, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting! Fun stuff.

But no, I don't think there's anything wrong at all with a large pine in a yard somewhere!

+oM

Other trees that might come in - Juniperus occidentalis and J. scopulorum, and perhaps Calocedrus decurrens further south.

Resin