Dying trees falling in Austin (Happy: sales, new home, neighborhoods)

[Weatherguy]

There are reports of dead and dying trees snapping and falling within Austin. Some have fallen on homes. As most people have noticed, we've already lost many thousands of trees in our canopy because people have not be putting a drop of supplemental watering on their trees during this epic drought. Not only is this becoming an apparent safety problem, but the value of homes and neighborhoods decreases significantly with the loss of trees. Spending $50 per month during the drought to keep your trees alive can save you as much as $1000 per large tree in removal expense, many thousands of dollars in loss of sales value to your home, and a huge expense if a falling tree does damage or causes harm to people.

Grass can be replaced, and shouldn't be getting supplemental watering during the drought, but trees must have supplemental watering, including the very old ones.

[HappyTexan]

Plenty of trees not in subdivision lots dying as well.
There's only so much water. Without rain lake levels will drop.

Historic drought..sad but we need to conserve water for drinking.

[Weatherguy]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Plenty of trees not in subdivision lots dying as well.
There's only so much water. Without rain lake levels will drop.

Historic drought..sad but we need to conserve water for drinking.

And for the rice farmers downstream who are taking a huge amount of the lake water (they're about to be cut off by the LCRA, from what I hear on the news).

Too bad we're now paying the price for decades of poor planning and continued water hookups for new homes and businesses when we don't have adequate water.

[passionatearts]

Here's a good link I found with tips on how to water trees during a drought:

Caring for Trees During Drought

I've been watering my sycamore tree with a soaker hose for 2 hours at a time every other day. Unfortunately, the tree had already lost a lot of leaves by the time I started doing the watering, but luckily, the tree hasn't lost any more leaves since I started doing the watering.

[capcat]

Originally Posted by passionatearts

Here's a good link I found with tips on how to water trees during a drought:

Caring for Trees During Drought

I've been watering my sycamore tree with a soaker hose for 2 hours at a time every other day. Unfortunately, the tree had already lost a lot of leaves by the time I started doing the watering, but luckily, the tree hasn't lost any more leaves since I started doing the watering.

How have you been able to water that frequently? In Austin, I believe we can only use a soaker hose once a week.

[Weatherguy]

Fortunately, if a tree loses leaves it's just in defense mode. What's so sad is that so many of our trees have leaves that turned brown on the tree, which means the tree is gone.

Just heard on the TV weather that we're going to go back over 100 degrees again.

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by capcat

How have you been able to water that frequently? In Austin, I believe we can only use a soaker hose once a week.

I wager a lot more are doing that as well..they don't want to lose investment in their landscapes.

[capcat]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

I wager a lot more are doing that as well..they don't want to lose investment in their landscapes.

Likely so.

[Weatherguy]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

I wager a lot more are doing that as well..they don't want to lose investment in their landscapes.

Also, many people are using soaker hoses around their foundations to prevent failure. Strictly speaking, they can't do that more than once per week, but it's happening. I've heard people say they'd rather pay a watering fine than $10,000 for a foundation repair (or whatever it costs).

[chuck_steak]

the fine is $475 per incident. I don't want to take that chance.

Also, it's fall, and that's the normal time of year for leaves to fall.