Did you spray a bunch of herbicide under it by any chance? Do you use total vegetation killer on the driveway?

Could we see a picture of the base of the tree, close up?

This tree is very sensitive to drought - long term that spot may do it in.

Why did you fertilizer and what exactly did you use?

has the driveway always been there.. any recent work on it /.....

where are you.. big city name.. how bad has the heat and drought been... it might be baking with all the surrounding heat retaining rock ...

how did you determine one hour of water was enough to overcome the drought??? .. did you just water under the tree???

ken

Drive way has always been there. Last fall I did add about 3-4 inches of crushed asphalt around inside oval of drive around this tree , which covers 3-4 foot inside of drip line ,three sides this tree. Tree has a 1 foot diameter at widest point. This was rolled over for compaction. From the trunk out I've always had ground cloth and 2-3 inches of gravel.

Tree is about a foot in diameter

I live just out side of South Haven and west of Kalamazoo ,Michigan in south western part of state.

Last year was great Lots of rain. My land is mostly sand.. This year started out with a bunch of rain.Buds came out early Then a later freeze after. buds on the tree and a bunch of my flowers came on. Since then pretty much of a drought.

I've never had to water my tree.after it got going after planting,but this year as you know is different. I never thought about the heat the gravel might produce but because the leaves usually come on and shade the gravel.

With advice of a contractor he put bored a few hole at drip line and sprinkled fertilizer around base. He also said to water about an hour twice a day and an oscillating sprinkler would work. I have the sprinkler cover drip line in

1 After reading your questions I have some for you.

Should I do away with gravel under tree and replace with mulch (amount?)

2 Watering. Is the oscillating sprinkler good enough or something better suggested.

And length of time suggested knowing conditions of soil)Sand and gravel etc.

3 Because of driveway covers drip line in 3-4 feet, Should i bore holes through asphalt to allow more water or does the 3 foot around base of tree enough ((tree dia, 1 foot about 30 foot high)

If I'm allowed I'll add pic of tree last year and this year with leaf cycle and brown spots as of late.

2019

2020

If “ground cloth” is landscape fabric get rid of it as well as the gravel and put down a natural mulch.

tj

It will of course be something that happened between when the tree was healthy looking and when it became chlorotic - look up interveinal chlorosis to see if anything clicks.

I was afraid of that answer. But if it doesn't improve. Since I'm too old to watch a new tree grow. I'll probably just do bushes. On the remaining tree in the same oval, is a red maple about the same age as the tulip tree but seems ta have weathered the same conditions. It also has the gravel etc,but didn't have the same effects. It doesn't have as wide of a drip line and didn't have any added asphalt or compaction. Would leaving the tulip trees roots (if I just cut it off) hurt any surrounding plants or the red maple?

Would it still be beneficial to replace the gravel with a layer of mulch? If so ,Any suggestions on how deep a layer of mulch or a certain kind?

Really thankful of advice!

I just now inspected my red maple. It to has the brown spots on it's leaves. Didn't notice because leaves are dark and the spots didn't stand out.

The last leaf looks like it has mites, get a magnifier and check for those to tell. Keeping in mind that since the maple is an unrelated species of tree it may have something else going on than what is making the tulip tree spotty.

As far as considering removal is concerned both species are large growing trees over 60' tall in time, with proportionate branch spreads. (And the tulip tree is in addition the largest growing deciduous tree native to eastern North America, with huge examples still being in existence). So there isn't room in your traffic island for both of them. And the time will come when large surface roots are coming up out of the gravel in the area near the island, if either tree is retained.

i dont pay money to ground out roots ... just have the stump cut flat to ground level.. and add a statue ... something real garish ... how about a 6 foot tulip in memorial ... lol

plant any where you can dig a hole for all the roots in the area ...

get rid of the landscape cloth .. if you can .. it interferes with water moving into the soil ...

ken

6 foot tulip memorial. LMAO. If it doesn't cure itself with me removing stuff and watering,I'm using that idea. I'm going to clean the whole area around both trees. With Covid, I got plenty of time around the house. Heh. That and beer! Thanks again.

My tuliptree has always been healthy, except one year the leaves were sparse (not as bad as yours tho). I noticed some other nearby tuliptrees looked bad too that year. The next year it looked fine -- never figured out what it was,