Internet non-answers

My tree has yellow leaves! And it is not yet fall. We had a long, cold, wintery spring and summer has barely started! What to do?! I googled birch tree with yellow leaves.

The first entry was:

“Yellowing leaves on your birch tree in summer suggest that the soil isn’t draining properly. … Work compost into the soil near the roots and check your watering to ensure you’re not providing too much and creating a puddle around your birch.”

A puddle! A puddle? What’s a puddle? That word brings back vague memories from my childhood and my children’s childhood. Yes, there were once some things called puddles in my life. It’s such a funny word. Puddle. Puddle. There are definitely no puddles within probably several miles of my birch tree. It could be many, many miles of puddle-less terrane. The nearest puddle is probably somewhere in Texas.

The second internet entry was:

“The most common reason for yellowing leaves on a young birch is heat and water stress. The leaves turn completely yellow and drop to the ground. This is a natural reaction of the tree to help reduce stress in the summer.”

Ok, well, I’ll buy that. Except it’s not a “young” birch tree. It’s a fully mature, very valuable (to me) birch tree. This is my critical tree, it’s the one that blocks the house behind ours from gazing into our backyard!

Do I now know anything more than I knew before I googled? No. My tree is stressed. Duh. It could be getting too much water (unlikely). Or not enough water (much more likely). It’s probably too hot (undoubtably). All of which I could basically already guess.

Now I’m going out with the hose to see if I can create a puddle on a rocky slope in the desert.