Native Plants

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Saturday - August 27, 2011

From: Burgaw, NC
Region: Southeast
Topic: Planting, Pruning, Trees
Title: Damage from Hurricane Irene in Burgaw, NC
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

We live in Burgaw, NC and have begun the clean up efforts of Hurricane Irene which has made a full grown crape myrtle lean to one side. Its a very large tree and it is not uprooted. Is there anyway to save this beautiful tree?

ANSWER:

Goodness. We are still watching the hurricane on the Weather Channel and here you are already trying to get cleaned up. Way to go!

We have no personal experience with this problem-it is nothing but dry and hot in Texas. So, we went Internet diving, and finally found this one article from Do It Yourself How to Replant a Young Uprooted Oak Tree. We know this is not exactly the information you wanted, but it's a beginning. The first thing we would advise is to get the services of a professional arborist, but they are all going to be terribly busy for quite a while. Nevertheless, you can at least try. Even a small tree like the crape myrtle is going to have a very heavy load of dirt on the roots. From the Kansas Forest Service Staking and Guying Landscape Trees.

Without access to professional arborist services, it is going to be very difficult, we wish you the very best!