The good news is that disfigured, damaged, and dropped leaves don't necessarily mean a tree is doomed. As long as the roots and woody parts of the tree are intact, there's a good chance that a leaf-troubled tree will produce a new and healthy round of foliage next spring.
Healthy trees that have lost less than half of their leaves will usually survive. Healthy trees losing more than half the leaves can survive defoliation 2-3 years in a row. If trees are stressed by drought or excessive heat from city pavement or poor site conditions they are less likely to survive repeated defoliation.
Other symptoms of transplant shock appear as wilting leaves (especially on recent transplants), yellowing, and leaf rolling or curling.
BOTTOM LINE. If your plant is losing leaves (or has lost all of them), investigate water and light issues and correct them. If the stem and branches are still bendable, there's life. And hope.
Trees receive environmental signals to grow new leaves when warm weather returns after cold spells and when daylight hours become longer. This is more applicable for deciduous trees, those that shed their leaves in winter, although evergreen trees can experience increased growth rates too in spring.
A tree without leaves may not necessarily be dead. It could be dormant or experiencing stress due to environmental factors. Perform the scratch test, bud inspection, and flexibility test to determine if the tree is alive.
So can a half-dead tree be saved? It depends. In many cases, the answer is a resounding YES! And in other cases, the answer is NO — with the possibility of renewed life from root systems that still have the capacity to sustain tree life.
Be patient: If you treat your tree well, the tree should recover from shock and establish itself. It can take up to 3 years for a tree with transplant shock to fully recover.
Stressed tree symptoms will manifest in a number of ways. Distorted or missing growth, substances or spots on foliage, and lack of vigor are some of the first clues that your tree is stressed.
Dead trees and trees in shock can look deceivingly similar, but there's an easy way to tell the difference. Pick a random twig on the tree and scratch it with your finger or a pocket knife. Do the same for a few other twigs throughout the tree. If they're all bright green and moist underneath, viola!
There are several reasons why deciduous trees lose their leaves: It means the tree spends less energy through the harsh winter. It conserves moisture within the trunk and keeps it from drying out. It allows wind to blow through the branches, putting less strain on the tree – a serious concern in winter storms and gales.
A fallen tree standing back up might seem like a miracle, but it has a fairly simple explanation. As storms uproot one side of the root plate (the part of the roots keeping the tree firmly in the ground), the pressure on the other side counterbalances itself, resulting in a fulcrum effect.
Trees cannot survive without leaves as photosynthesis supplies their food supply.
While it is possible to revive sick or dying trees, bringing dead trees back to life is typically not feasible. There are several reasons to remove a dead tree — but how exactly can one tell if a tree is dead, sick, or healthy?
Some may show sprouts within months, while others take years. Full regrowth to a mature tree can take anywhere from 10 to 20+ years if it happens at all.
Help your tree recover by giving it a good soaking of water once a week. Consider applying a 2 to 4-inch mulch over the tree's root system, but keep the mulch off the trunk to prevent rot formation.
Cambium can be found under the bark and will appear fresh and green. To conduct this test, make a small hole using a knife to locate the cambium of the tree. If the cambium layer is green, the tree is dormant. If the layer beneath the bark is dry, you will know that the tree is dead.
So, are leafless trees dead? Not necessarily! Trees naturally shed their leaves throughout their life cycle during the fall and winter before regrowing them in the summer.
We discussed earlier that most of the time it's not possible to revive a completely dead tree. However, there are cases where a tree may appear dead but still retains some life within.
For instance, in the Midwest, the chance of a frost persists until later in spring, so trees won't sprout new leaves until mid-April. The Northeast is especially likely to see a late-season freeze, so some areas may not see leaves until late April or even early May.
Most healthy trees can tolerate a single heavy defoliation event with only a reduction in vigor. Exceptions are evergreens which are usually killed by one complete defoliation. Two to three consecutive years of early season defoliation can kill even the healthiest trees.
If a tree lacks vigor, then it'll lack the ability to grow leaves and make critical food for optimal tree health. Poor tree vigor can be caused by a variety of factors; in the spring, this is often connected to the rise in fungal diseases.