City Trees is a premier publication focused on urban + community forestry. In each issue, you’ll learn how to best manage the trees in your community and more!
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/648999
Hurricane Katrina (August 2005) pushed huge amounts of brackish water on land that lingered for 30 days or more in New Orleans and greater southern Louisiana. Our company, Bayou Tree Service, is full-service but has specialized in historic tree preservation—especially that of live oaks—since 1980. Our crews were able to get into New Orleans starting four days after Katrina and worked many months, in extreme conditions, on tree clearing and hazard mitigation. Everyone was predicting the demise of the live oaks, because although we know they are very tolerant of abuse, no one had observed these trees after they'd been inundated for 30 days or more! We were all worried. But the flooded live oaks did just fine. Because so many other species blew over or declined during and after the flood, the live oaks had little competition when it came time to rebound. The few other tree species that did well included various palms, baldcypress (Taxodium distichum), and slash pine (P. elliottii). After the flood waters receded, lawns were com- pletely brown and looked desert-like. Most of the ornamental shrubs and herbaceous plants were dead brown and then here were these live oaks with dark green and healthy leaves, looking like they had survived nuclear fallout. It only enhanced my deep reverence for this incredibly forgiving species with which we have worked so closely for 35 years. Mass southern magnolia (M. grandiflora) mor- tality confirmed my longtime observation that "native" species aren't necessarily better pre- pared for extreme stress. It's all about whether the tree has been properly matched to the site. Southern magnolias, for instance, like to be on high, dry, mineral soils. Their being native is not reason alone to use them, at least not in low-lying areas. Meanwhile, crape myrtles (Lagerstroemia spp.), originally from Asia, weathered the flood- ing well. Savannah hollies (Ilex x attenuata) and other hybrid hollies took a beating after the flooding; we were quite surprised to see that in mature, tall hedges of hollies, every single one died. Hollies grow natively in coastal and swampy areas, yet they were devastated by the flood waters. We noticed more insects in the wake of the flooding, in particular, scale insects. Of course, scale was most likely to hit trees that were already in poor health. —John Benton, Owner, Bayou Tree Service, New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana