Catalina Ironwood- health and care

[Anonymous]

We recently bought a house in Mountain View and in the back yard is a rather large tree just identified as the Cat. ironwood,and we wonder about how to assess a number of things: -its health it drops lots of brown leaves and mostly brown leafclusters daily -how much water it can tolerate there is a sprinkler that keeps the adjacent Rhododendrons, ferns, Camilia, andstar jasmine happy -how brittle it may be. the tree is much taller than our 2 story house and some of the branches extendlaterally for significant distances i.e. do we need to prune it to avoid breaking/falling limbs? [I can guestimate the height andpace off some branches if that would help] - pruning it produces many many suckers/shoots at the bottom and higher. I hopeto utilize these to create a denser sub-story to block late afternoon and early evening light from blinding folks eating at thekitchen table.

The sites that google provided were helpful in confirming the identification and providing some general knowledge about thenatural history, but lacked the details desired. If you can point me towards other web sites that are more informative it would beappreciated.

David </p>

[Anonymous]

David -

You should be really sure that your tree is in fact a Catalina ironwood. I have never seen one as large as you describe, and would not be sure how such an apparently old specimen would behave. You could take a branch up to Yerba Buena Nursery on Skyline for ID, or else take a branch to one of the botanic gardens in Berkeley.

All the Catalina ironwood trees I've seen have been rather narrow in shape, for California natives. Also, I haven't seen them sent up suckers, and it would be surprising that a tree native to southern California would thrive for all these years with a watering regime suited to Camellias and such, unless the water-loving shade plants are a recent addition.

At any rate, you want to be quite sure of your identification before you do anything drastic. There is the regular form of Catalina ironwood, and then there is var. asplenifolius, the fernleaf Cataline ironwood, which is actually more widely planted and I think easier to grow.

Good luck,

Lori</p>

[Anonymous]

Lori,

Thanks for the reply. i did take a sample in to a local nursery. The nursery man surprised my by coming up with a latin name immediately. he had a bit of a problem with the spelling/looking it up in which ever Botanical encyclopedia it was, but we found it in the book and the fern-like leaf clusters and pictures are 100% matching

I think the book did mention suckers. The fact that it is always dropping stuff may not be abnormal, but I will try to cutback on the water and add some iron. Nothing drastic, just minor changes then wait and see.

David</p>

[Anonymous]

Dave,If your ID is correct, it sounds like a wonderful tree! I also have not seen one that large and normally it is not a spreading tree although there are always those exceptions. I wonder what the normal life span in Garden conditions is? I imagine cutting back the water and adding a bit of iron as you have stated, would possibly help. Since it is suckering from the base that can indicate vascular problems, as the flow of 'sap' upward is impeded, suckering is the plants response to providing some new foliage as a the upper canopy drys. Hopefully that is not the case with your specimen. Regardless, I would prune off all but a few of the suckers to force growth upward, add Mulch to the area under the drip line after removing competing plants and their roots gently from that area. Perhaps first it would be best to call a professional arborist who knows about priceless native trees like yours may be. Ted Kipping works up in the Bay area, is that where Mountain View is?. He is good and so is Barrie Cotespelling?. Ted usually has a small add in the back of Pacific Horticulture magazine and Barrie can be tracked down somehow. Both are fair and honest professionals who can really evaluate your tree.Please let us know what occurs.Dan</p>

[Anonymous]

I have had the good fortune to see the species growing on San Clemente Island. In the multi-tree population I saw, suckering was apparent.</p>

[Anonymous]

Thanks,

The suckers have never been a concern for me. We prune the lowest ones and have hopes that the midlevel ones will help to fill in to create a better sun screen. [right now my 12 year old complains about sun in his eyes at dinner time and i have NO desire to install any shades on the window.

What was/is a concern, is the quantity of clusters of dead leaves on the tree which lead to a good deal of debris dropping to the ground. If this is normal for the species then we and our neighobrs will have to live with it, but if this is abnormal and due to improper amount of watering or some soil deficiency iron? pH? or excess, then I'd like to correct the imbalance, make the tree hapy and prevent all this droppage.

many thanks.David</p>