Soil decompaction would be the best you can do. Look up 'terravent' and see if there are any contractors offering this in your area. It involves blasting air into the ground under high pressure to break up the compaction caused by heavy machinery, etc., and can work very well. Whether it might be too late to help your tree much is hard to know.

Resin

The truly bad news is that it's more than difficult to remedy previous compaction damage. It's often not possible

The borers are often the final blow to stressed trees.

Sorry.

personally .... i wouldnt invest anything else in this tree ... no matter what any snake oil salesman wants to offer ...

other than perhaps.. watering the lawn .... which translates into watering the tree ... and any fert put on the lawn.. is more than enough for the tree to steal from the lawn ...

its just that no one ever convinced me that any kind of injection is of any value ... let me put it this way .. how can the applicator PROVE that he injected anything that was even close to the roots??? how do you know he didnt just inject it into the water table ....

DEEP ROOT INJECTION ... whats the point.. odds are.. a majority [90%] of the roots are in the first foot of the soil.. so exactly what is deep about that ....

and as noted ... whats the point of injecting the trunk of the tree for the bug.. when the problem is the health of the tree rather than the bug... even if you kill all the bugs.. you still wont have a healthy tree ...

if you get the inkling to continue to throw money at this thing.. please come back and discuss what is being offered .. and at what price .... if it were me.. i would be saving the money for potential removal ...

good luck

ken

Are the root flares exposed? Often times, I've seen construction guys pile on too much dirt around the trees. What else... Deep core aerator (longer than the typical ones used for lawn), apply fungal dominated compost and organic fertilizer. Water deeply every two weeks. Hope for best.

I'm assuming you are in central Texas. At this point, just water once a week until you get some rain. In March/April your tree will drop even more leaves. After that, you will have a good idea of how your tree is doing once it begins putting on new leaves. They will be pretty small at first.

A follow up post. I am in Central Texas (Austin).

It's now spring and the live oak has budded out in a number of spots and looks much better. Some branches look to be thriving but others seem to be dead. But I do have some concern over the dead branches. Should I cut them out now or should I leave it alone? I've had an arborist come in and he says to leave it be for now. A second opinion never hurt though. Anyone?

a few pictures:
A very healthy branch

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a "sucker"
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There are many buds here but also dead branches. It's very hard to see the buds in this picture.

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