Guest photographer © 2015 Kurt Ingham. A picture of eminent doom: these
three 103-year-old redwoods died in the Southern California drought and will be removed
starting Saturday. Salts in the soil from lack of rain-cleansing killed
them: we could have watered until Gov. Brown personally asked us to stop
and it would have made no difference. Climate change and urban heat effect has doomed our landscaping from 103 years ago...
In answer to FAQ, we're relying on the advice of an experienced arborist who checked these trees two years ago for comparison. He has since attended seminars about the effects of the drought on SoCal trees and told us exactly how the trees died. (You can't tell from the photos, but they are bending over at the top as dead trees do.) We have had a new average of 3" per annum rainfall, and that matches the Sahara Desert. Our Valley savannah previously had between 12"-28" inches rain with droughts only lasting 3 years at most this last century (since the house and its landscaping are a century old.) We have lost LOTS of trees at this point, the 80' Walnut being the biggest, and these 60' Redwoods being second biggest. We are confirmed tree planters and hate doing this, but as previous trees have fallen on top of our cars and 30' branches are dropping off routinely, we don't want anyone hurt.
Above, almost dead Mimosa tree 
In answer to FAQ, we're relying on the advice of an experienced arborist who checked these trees two years ago for comparison. He has since attended seminars about the effects of the drought on SoCal trees and told us exactly how the trees died. (You can't tell from the photos, but they are bending over at the top as dead trees do.) We have had a new average of 3" per annum rainfall, and that matches the Sahara Desert. Our Valley savannah previously had between 12"-28" inches rain with droughts only lasting 3 years at most this last century (since the house and its landscaping are a century old.) We have lost LOTS of trees at this point, the 80' Walnut being the biggest, and these 60' Redwoods being second biggest. We are confirmed tree planters and hate doing this, but as previous trees have fallen on top of our cars and 30' branches are dropping off routinely, we don't want anyone hurt.
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