Copper Beech Second Flush?!

symbiotic1

Mame
Messages
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Location
Los Angeles (Northridge), CA
USDA Zone
9b
Short version:
I have a copper beech. The leaves burned in a heat wave, put it under shade cloth, changed to stronger fert, now getting second flush of growth with much larger leaves. Is it the ferts causing it? Does the tree naturally replace burned leaves? Should I be worried about the size and fertilize less?
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Long version:
After reading through a recent post from giga about his collected Beech it brought up some questions about a copper beech I have. My tree put out its growth nicely and using techniques linked to in other posts I was clipping the stronger end bud as they extended to force the inner buds to open and hopefully extend. Some did! The technique seemed to work well until we had a heat wave and the leaves scorched. Since then it hasn't done much. A few of the other buds opened but the leaves never got that big. After that I got a 50% shade cloth to keep any trees under that aren't fond of the full SoCal sun.

I was using gropower slow release granular fertilizer (5-4-2 I think) until recently and changed to a new water soluble fert that is considerably stronger (16-16-16). After starting to use that 1-2x a week (about every 2-3 waterings. The package said use every watering during growing season but the heat here means I'm watering daily sometimes), most all my trees have burst with new growth. This beech has been forming a lot of buds since the fert change, including on bare bark, and some are starting to open with leaves 2-4x the size of the first flush in spring. They have made it through some strong heat too without burning so far.

Is this massive leaf size just a result of the stronger fertilizer and lower light conditions from the shade cloth, and should I be concerned or be fertilizing it less? My understanding is that beech trees have a leaf surface area limit each year and once they reach it, growth stops. Do they naturally replace damaged leaves that end up reducing the leaf area or did I trigger this all through the new, stronger fertilizer? Judyb mentioned in Giga's post that beech use salts and nutrients differently. I just want to make sure I'm not causing something detrimental.
 
Don't worry about the leaf size, that's not important at this point. Just be glad it's putting out new leaves. I would give it a couple weeks to harden the new leaves off a bit then give it some fertilizer to get it strong for next spring. I wouldn't use anything chemical, try something organic and slow release. I responded to the thread of Giga's with some additional info, you should take a look again. Copper beech are stronger growers when young than other beeches, at least that's been my experience. Be sure to taper off the N ratio of fert in the fall whenever that is for you.
 
Thanks for the advice. That makes me feel more relaxed about it. The stuff I switched to is called SeaGrow. Its derived from seaweed and bonemeal and a few other meals and extracts. Though I have some green dream I could switch to using that instead since that is slow release. Fall domancy here won't be until practically Thanksgiving. So I can use low N then. Thanks again!
 
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