Red Gum Problem

 I'm in a bit of trouble.......
I have about 5 very large red gums in my backyard.
I recently just tried to get council approval to take down one of the trees
simply because its on the fence line and I want to replaced the fence.
I got knocked back by the council... they gave me pictures of how to build a
new fence around the tree....  Fair enough I accepted it.....

This was about 3 weeks ago.....
Last week I noticed that one of my other red gums was looking like it was
dying....  all the leave have gone brown and its looking kinda dead...

Then this weekend I looked up again and another red gum is looking the
same......

A few months ago there was a small red gum... maybe about 1.5 metres
tall...I though must have just sprouted  from one of the seeds that the tree
drops... I don't want any more gum trees I'm happy with what I have... so
anyway I chopped it down... about 20cm from the ground....  then left it....
about a month afte rthat it had some sprouts coming up from it so I got a
bit of poison and sprayed it.....

Now what I don't know is....  could this have caused my big gum trees to
die???  This small one is about half way between the sick looking trees....
I never would have thought it could do any harm...

Now I'm worried that the council is going to think that I killed these
trees!!!!  :(  I don't  know what to do....  could it be possible?   Even on
those sprouts that had been poisoned... they were still light green...  I
just don't see how this could have happened.....

Is it possible I could have some kind of bugs in the trees??   At the bottom
of one of them I tok a little bit of bark off and there appeared to be some
small white ants... so I want to get the pest guys out to get rid of
that....
But I'm just really worried right now.... not sure what to do.....  if these
trees die, the council is going  to be pointing fingers!   About the only
good thing is that I didn't try to get approval to chop these sick trees
down....  I've tried to do the right thing!    Coudl I still get fined even
if it was an accident??  Can they prove how the tree died??

Thanks

  

What poison did you use?

If it was Roundup, then it would not have killed the other trees.

 

Its called   "ERASE Weed Killer"  I've used this mostly in my front yard to
kill off, I think its called, silver leaf weed

 Sorry its actually   "ERAZE"

 

Hi Glen,

I am just wondering about where you sprayed the tree that had the shoots
coming up. Did you just spray the stump or the area around it as well?

Has it been extremely dry in your area? Because Red Gums need lots of water
that is underground. These trees are giant pumps so don't be surprise if
they use more than 500 litres each a day.

Does your trees have any patches of yellow leaves on them? Some will be
green and then sections will be yellow. If the tree has all yellow leaves
have any new leaves come out of the old branches? Also can any dead branches
be seen without leaves?  If any of these have happened then the trees maybe
suffering dieback It was a general belief that this is caused by phytophera
in the soil. But I saw last year sometime that it can be caused by  ground
water becoming alkaline with mineral salts. The solution was to put small
blocks of iron chelates into the trunk so if was drawn up through the sap
layer. Trees recovered well from this treatment.

My Last thought is could your neighbours have poisoned them?

Anyway some things to thinks about.

Richard