Carpinus betulus - Not sure why the top portion looks not so great

[Notsureaboutplantnames]

This large Carpinus was gifted to me by a friend that could not keep up with his collection last fall due to the heat in Fairfield CA. The tree along with its brother were left over trees from the Getty Museum plantings.

The tree had lost its apex. The thought as a result of excessive heat. It is a beast. Came out of its pot while cramming into my car (the pot is heavy enough on its own).

With some help I managed to get it into a 1/2 blue barrel that had been used as a wicking bed. had drilled lots of holes in the bottom of the side for drainage. Media is coco and perlite.

I looked it over carefully in the winter and noticed more dead areas at the top but decided to wait until summer to see how things looked.

It's not quite summer here but the top 1/3 to 1/2 is not like the rest. Since he has verticillium in his inground maples I did some reading and Carpinus are not susceptible to that fungus. (missouribotanicalgarden). That and I did not find any streaking of the wood normally seen.

There is a wound on the trunk from years ago but the branches immediately above are not showing the symptoms as the top.

Too much sun?
Transplant shock?
Oldest leaves on questionable portions are yellowing but not on the bottom of the tree (not N deficiency.)

Its too wide and the interior of the branches are lacking foliage so it needs work anyway.

 

[Wood]

You probably want to remove the lower suckers off the trunk. They're probably diverting energy from the rest of the tree. My hunch for the weak apex would just be transplant shock or recovery from losing the apex

I don't think the leggy lower branches are a huge issue. I haven't used betulus, but other Carpinus species usually backbud very easily. Even if they don't, you can cut the entire tree back to stubs and reset basically whenever

I hope it turns around for you! It's an awesome looking trunk!

 

[rockm]

The top of this (likely Korean or Turc) hornbeam is likely sunburned at least it looks that way to me. Heated up roots in The summer can also mess things up as well

 

[Notsureaboutplantnames]

I'll take sunburn and remove the suckers, thanks

 

[Notsureaboutplantnames]

Update on this large Carpinus.

Lots of dieback over the summer, fall and winter.

When the oyster (?) mushrooms showed up I knew its was in trouble.

I cut it back a bit and you can see the rot that came up from a poorly compartmentalized branch removal. You can see the would did not close, resulting to rot down the stem. Interesting, Univ Florida says Carpinus are good at compartmentalizing.



Even the smaller branches did not close properly.


This is one of the scars lower down...


Might be worth trying a few thread grafts and cutting it to about 8" tall. It suckered great before.

 

[CptnGlyn]

That small black area where you have cut is really well compartmentalised.

Vertical progression of decay is the most difficult for trees to compartmentalise because it involves the sealing of open vessels to work. You have cut through right below a wound, so it’s to be expected, this isn’t the result of the wound not occluding, it’s a natural reaction to the wound in the first place.

Did you get a picture of the mushrooms?