I have a very large (30″ diameter) pecan tree and very old. (BTW, I would submit some photos, but I can’t find the “Browse” button !) Does this mean water is coming down from above somewhere? If so I would think filling it with foam would be a very bad idea.Īny thoughts? Should I try to clean the rotten wood and fill it in, or leave it alone? I can reach my arm up inside the tree until my elbow hits the TOP of the surface hole - the hollow goes up and tapers to a rough point. Because of the drainage issue I decided I would fill it with wire and foam as suggested, but as I looked closer, I realized that the hollow goes quite a ways UP into the tree. I’ve had one tree guy say leave it (before the drain hole damage, though) and another suggest I could “fill it with chicken wire and Great Stuff” (foam).
Result? The bark is now split away from the tree below the drain hole - apparently the water draining out the hole was running behind the bark and damaging it from beneath. This appeared to be causing damage to the wood at the bottom of the hollow, so a year or so ago I drilled a small drain hole from the hollow to the outside of the tree. The first thing I noticed was that the hollow went lower than the surface hole, so it would hold water when it rained. There is a large hole in it - maybe 2 feet tall and 1.5 feet wide, and a large hollow within the tree.
I liked the article and was wondering if I could get a bit of advice.