Established 2019
An oak turning brown across the whole crown in a few weeks is worth confirming, because timing matters more on oaks than on most trees.
Oak wilt is a fungus that plugs the water-carrying wood inside the tree. It moves two ways: underground through connected roots between oaks growing near each other, and above ground when beetles carry spores from an infected tree to a fresh wound on a healthy one.
Red oaks, which around here usually means Shumard and Texas red oak, tend to go fast, sometimes within a few weeks of the first symptoms. Live oaks tend to decline more slowly, over months, and often show it as yellow or brown running along the leaf veins. Post oaks and the rest of the white oak group are generally more resistant, though not immune.
Because it travels through connected roots, oak wilt rarely stays with one tree. Live oaks in particular tend to grow as one connected root system across a whole street, which is how a single infected tree can work through a block over a few years.
That is why confirming what you actually have matters before anything gets cut. The response to oak wilt is different from the response to drought, and getting it wrong in either direction is expensive.
We would confirm what kind of oak it is, look at how the leaves are dropping and what pattern the color is following, and walk the trees around it. The neighboring trees usually tell you as much as the sick one.
We paint every cut we make on an oak, on every job, in every month. It costs almost nothing and it is one of those things that separates people who work on trees from people who own a saw.
Arborwise Tree Check walks you through what you can actually see and helps narrow down what deserves attention. Estimates are free and we love talking trees.