Three Strike Rule?

Rosie Lerner, Extension Consumer Horticulturist, Department of Horticulture & Landscape Architecture, Purdue University

This ginkgo tree already had a couple of strikes against it.

Strike 1: Planted in a very stressful site consisting of a narrow island in a paved asphalt parking lot with infrequent, irregular irrigation by hand-held hose.

Strike 2: April 2007, subjected to hard freeze (near 20ºF) just as its pushing out new foliage buds. Many young leaves were stunted while others subsequently dried up and fell off. But, the tree appears to have many new leaves that appear normal.

Strike 3: The day this image of the trunk was photographed, a mulch fire (careless tossing of cigarette butt?) resulted in scorch to the base of the trunk. It is too soon to tell the impact of this scorch. We will continue to monitor this tree's progress (or lack thereof) through the coming growing season, but as yet, it is too soon to tell whether this tree is "out"!

Click image to enlarge