2026-09-05 Drought

* Notes

1. 🙂 Acer Maple and sycamore: All are fine, including the 3 year old Norway maple which is growing fast. Acer globosum looks a bit droopy.

2. 🙂 Aesculus Chestnut. The 3yo Indian horse chestnut is doing very well. The veteran horse chestnut is fine too.

3. 🙁 Betula Birch: Leaves turned brown on several mature birches (also seen elsewhere in borough), will have to see how they recover. 3yo birches are fine (but are still being watered). 

4. 🙁 Carpinus betulus Hornbeam: Mature hornbeams dropped their seeds early and looked visibly drought stressed.

5. 🙂 Cedrus Cedars. Both 3yo trees are doing very well. The mature cedars all look fine – some minor branch drops but not necessarily drought related.

6. 😐 Cypresses: Most were OK, but especially the Lawson cypresses developed many brown patches. Leyland cypresses also look bad, but may have other issues.

7. 😐 Malus Crabapples: Some veteran trees dropped branches. Young trees needed constant watering. All had drooping leaves. (Malus trilobata was OK, however.)

8. 😐 Magnolia: Most were fine, but a 3yo magnolia kobus wasn't being watered and nearly died.

9. 😐 Liquidambar: Leaves thinned out somewhat, but doesn't seem too stressed.

10. 😐 Medlar: Veteran tree dropped nearly all its fruit. (Didn't do this previous years.) Young tree is fine, but is being watered regularly.

11. 🙂 Pinus Pines and spruce: Most are fine. Some are unwell (example), but these are probably other issues than drought. Pinus nigra has some brown needles. The 3yo Scots pine is thriving.

12. 😐 Populus Poplar: Leaves thinned out considerably, and two branches dropped.

13. 😐 Prunus serrulata Japanese cherry: All young trees needed constant watering, even most 3yo trees showed heat stress. Also some older trees were scorched.

14. 🙁 Sorbus Rowan: All rowans turned completely brown – will have to see in Spring if they survived. Same situation in other parks and street trees.

15. 🙁 Viburnum Japanese snowball bush: The bushes by the chapel look terrible (map), 90% of leaves went brown. Will have to see in Spring whether parts have died. (As far as I know this hasn't happened before; the bush is over 30 years old.)