It started in December. I saw it as I jogged around the streets near my house. It was particularly noticeable along Forest Avenue and Milton Road, and unavoidably noticeable at the northwest corner of Rye Town Park: evergreen trees turning brown.
By Bill Lawyer
It started in December. I saw it as I jogged around the streets near my house. It was particularly noticeable along Forest Avenue and Milton Road, and unavoidably noticeable at the northwest corner of Rye Town Park: evergreen trees turning brown.
Then the snows came, and the brightness of the snow reflecting the sunshine back up highlighted the brown-ness of the needles on the towering evergreen trees.
Now I am aware that the difference between deciduous and evergreen trees is not absolute. The needles of evergreen trees do turn brown and drop off, but they shouldn’t do it all at once. And new needles are growing simultaneously, so that to the casual observer they really are evergreen.
On some trees, nearly all the needles have turned brown. In others, large sections have browned.
One thing I noticed, however, is that not all species of evergreens are browning out. I haven’t seen any spruce or cedars turning brown. It’s mainly pine trees, white pines in particular.
When you see pines all turning brown at once, your first thought is it must be from some kind of disease. Almost daily, there is an article in the press about the latest insect infestation that came in from some other part of the world and is munching its way across the country.
The most recent case is the emerald ash borer beetle, which moved from west to east. The New York Department of Agriculture has extended the quarantine on trees to include Westchester’s neighbor to the north, Putnam County.
Thus, my next thought was to consult Frazer Pehmoellor, a certified arborist with Bartlett Tree Company. His response was that there is both good and bad news.
The good news is that it’s not an infestation; the change in color is not the result of an invading pest. The bad news is that it’s from salinization. The brown-ness we started seeing on pines in December was caused by Hurricane Sandy in October. In fact, it might be appropriate to change the hurricane’s name from Sandy to Salty.
While high winds can break off branches and even upend trees, how can they make evergreens turn brown?
The answer is that as the storm steamrolled its way along the northeast coast, it sucked up the salt water from the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound, and sprayed it onto the land, its foliage, and its trees.
And this happened at a time before many of the evergreens had become dormant for the winter. So, the salty water that was deposited on land worked its way into the roots of the trees. The salt reduced the trees’ ability to absorb and process water and nutrients.
In the last two months, Pehmoellor said he has seen salt-browned trees as far as five miles inland from the Sound.
For evolutionary reasons, some evergreens growing in our area are less susceptible to salt. These include Norway spruce and Austrian pine.
What can we do about the others? Otherwise healthy trees usually bounce back from short-term damage, said Pehmoeller. But, he added, “Homeowners might want to consider spring fertilization.” And, if the salt damaged the trees’ buds, further care may be required.
Let’s hope this spring that, along with the greening of the deciduous trees, we get our evergreens green again.
