Garden

[JustJazzmom]

Another killer of trees is allowing grass to grow up against the tree trunks & then having weed whackers cut the grass. Many times the whacker cuts into the bark, an infection sets in & the tree dies. 

Keep grass and mulch away from tree trunks. 

[gardenman]

Back to the topic of girdling for a moment. Ironically enough some girdling of trees can be beneficial. Orchardists will occasionally partially girdle a fully leafed out fruit tree or grape vine to encourage it to set fruit and to make sweeter fruit. They believe they can cut off the supply of sugar created by the leaves from going back to the roots and the rest of the tree and force the tree to put that sugar into the fruit. It's got no where else to go with the branch girdled. They've got to be somewhat careful in how they do it so as to not kill the tree, but they can force larger, sweeter fruit by girdling the tree. 

[GingerPeach]

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@gardenman wrote:

Your tree should be fine in the short term. The only "living" part of the trunk is the outer layers of the bark. Everything internal is just structural. As long as the bark stays intact the tree will live and do fine over the shorter term. The long term issue is insects and moisture getting inside the heartwood and eating/rotting it out creating a hollow tree. That's not much of a problem with a smaller tree however. They can be very hollow and be fine.

Rabbits can kill a tree by eating the bark around the base of the tree, a process called girdling. Early settlers in wooded areas would girdle trees to kill them and stop them from leafing out casting shade on the crops they'd plant in the fertile soil under the trees. A fairly common cause of death in those days was deadfall where a large branch would break off and kill the farmer. It was much faster and easier to girdle a forest of trees than to cut them all down. A farmer could create a large field in just a few days by girdling the trees growing there. Deadfall would provide them firewood and collecting the deadfall was a daily task typically performed by the children. On windy days you'd have to be very careful as there would be a lot of deadfall raining down.

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@gardenman

My first thought upon reading this is that it might just be a sneaky way to craft the perfect murder.  Of course, there would be plenty of limitations for one's characters, and the selected victim would have to already be someone who was going to be in the "girdled forest" for a good reason already, and perhaps repeatedly, but I'm sure a clever author could work it out.

It makes me sad, though, at the death of all those trees.

[mousiegirl]

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@gardenman wrote:

Your tree should be fine in the short term. The only "living" part of the trunk is the outer layers of the bark. Everything internal is just structural. As long as the bark stays intact the tree will live and do fine over the shorter term. The long term issue is insects and moisture getting inside the heartwood and eating/rotting it out creating a hollow tree. That's not much of a problem with a smaller tree however. They can be very hollow and be fine.

Rabbits can kill a tree by eating the bark around the base of the tree, a process called girdling. Early settlers in wooded areas would girdle trees to kill them and stop them from leafing out casting shade on the crops they'd plant in the fertile soil under the trees. A fairly common cause of death in those days was deadfall where a large branch would break off and kill the farmer. It was much faster and easier to girdle a forest of trees than to cut them all down. A farmer could create a large field in just a few days by girdling the trees growing there. Deadfall would provide them firewood and collecting the deadfall was a daily task typically performed by the children. On windy days you'd have to be very careful as there would be a lot of deadfall raining down.

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@gardenman I havn't heard this about rabbits, have many hopping around and never bothered any tree, BUT, I know rats can do what you mentioned, as they took out a many decades old stand of Junipers on my property.