Andre Lemos wrote:Hi Michael, it's very hot and dry right now, after a month those defoliated trees still don't have any leafs and all the trees were planted this March so they are baby trees. If no leafs resprout until mid September should i replace them?
As long as the branches are still alive, I would wait. A live branch will bend rather than break. Scratch a branch with your fingernail or a knife blade and you should see a green cambial layer. If the branches just have a dry
wood snap to them and there's no green, I'd say it's dead and replace it. As long as the branches are alive, I'd wait.
Here's one observation I've made on my own trees. I think there is some kind of hormonal signal that leaves give off that lets the rest of the tree know they're there. Trees with fully formed leaves devote growth to other things besides more leaves. Even decrepit almost-dead leaves appear to still produce this signal, so the tree doesn't produce new leaves to replace the decrepit ones. Once stripped off by hand though, the tree suddenly looses that signal, and immediately starts producing new growth.
That might work for you. If there are the chewed-off remains of damaged leaves, try stripping them off completely, right down to the basal stalks. That might be all it takes to cut off the "leaf present" signal.
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