Signs a Tree Is Telling You Something

A lean, and whether it moved

Not every leaning tree is failing. Plenty of trees grow at an angle their whole lives, reaching for light around a building or out of a slope, and they build extra wood to hold that position. The usual sign of a lean the tree is comfortable with is a trunk that curves, sweeping out and then back toward vertical as it grew.

The lean that matters is the one that changed. Look at the ground rather than the tree. Soil cracked, mounded or heaving on the side opposite the lean, roots lifting out of the lawn, or a gap opening between the trunk base and the soil all suggest the root plate is moving. A straight trunk tipped over as a unit is a different picture from a curved trunk that grew that way, and it deserves attention soon.

Forks that are splitting

Where two stems of roughly equal size meet in a tight V, the joint between them is generally weaker than a union where one clear trunk continues and a smaller branch comes off it. Bark can get pinched into the union as both sides grow, which keeps the wood from knitting together well behind it. Many trees carry these unions for decades without incident, so the fork itself is not a verdict.

What changes the picture is movement. A crack running down from the crotch, a seam that has opened, bark bulging or splitting on either side, or one side visibly dropping compared to the other are all signs the union is working apart. On a large stem over a driveway, a house or a spot people sit, that is one of the things most worth having looked at before a storm makes the decision for you.

Mushrooms and conks at the base

Mushrooms scattered in the lawn nearby are ordinary and mostly good news about your soil. The ones to take seriously are growing directly out of the tree: at the base of the trunk, on the root flare, or along a major root where it enters the ground. Shelf-like brackets on the lower trunk fall into the same category.

The reason this matters is location. Fruiting bodies on the structural wood generally point to fungal activity inside that wood, and the base is where the whole tree's load is carried. You cannot tell from outside how far it has progressed, and a tree can look entirely healthy in the canopy while this is going on below. This is the sign most worth a professional look rather than another season of watching.

Missing bark and open wounds

A vertical strip where bark has come off, a scar from a mower or a trimmer around the base, a lightning wound, or a crack running up the trunk all interrupt the layer just under the bark that moves the tree's food supply around. A small nick is nothing. A strip running a long way up the trunk, or damage wrapping a large share of the circumference, is a structural and a health question at once.

Position tells you a lot. Damage low on the trunk is more serious than the same wound out on a limb, because everything above it depends on that section. Look for whether the tree is responding: rolled, thickened edges around the wound mean it is walling the damage off. Soft, punky wood, insects working the edges or a wound that looks the same year after year mean it is not.

Deadwood, thinning, and what is actually urgent

Some dead twigs inside a canopy are normal as a tree shades out its own interior. What is worth noticing is scale and pattern. Large dead limbs, thinning that starts at the top and works down, one section leafing out noticeably later or thinner than the rest, or bare branch ends across the whole crown are the tree reporting a problem rather than routine housekeeping.

Separate that from urgency, because they are different questions. The urgent item is dead or hanging wood over something you care about: a walkway, a driveway, a patio, a car, a doorway. That wood is coming down eventually and it does not announce when. Along the Wasatch Front the usual trigger is wind or heavy wet snow, which is exactly the moment you would rather it was already gone.

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