1st World problem, I know...
I have 18 acres in Los Angeles County that is butt up against about 1,000 acres of wild lands. For the last two to three years boring beetles have been killing my California Live Coastal Oaks, see the two picture below.
I've had a few other Oaks removed. The beetles are very invasive. On Thursday, I'm taking a class to allow me to buy the recommended pesticide treatment, which you need to be licensed to purchase and use. You dump a few lbs. of the stuff at the base of the tree and water the heck out of it. The problem is that with 18 acres, I have a few hundred Oak trees. The cost of the treatment chemical will be $thousands, plus I need to water under the Oaks, which you normally don't want to do, but its been so dry here, I need to.
The experts suggest a soaker hose around the drip line of each tree and let it run for 24 hours, shut it off and repeat again in about a month. So I'll need several hundred feet of soaker hose to get around most of the trees drip lines. Can I drag up to 1,000' of garden house up hills and still get any water pressure? Plus, there are thousands of Oaks in the adjacent area that are not being treated at all. On my own property, I have a few acres of dead wood that I can't do anything about, the cost of removal would be more than the value of my house. All that dead wood must have beetles. Some of these Oaks are easily 500 years old.
The chemical treatment will help protect my Oaks, and I'll focus on the trees within a few hundred feet of my house, but beyond that, I'm thinking in the long run I'm going to lose the battle. The Oaks are a big part of the value of the property, and I've been thinking about retiring in 2-3 years, so maybe my best plan is to save them as much as I can and sell the place.
Again, not really looking for recommendations, I'm just frustrated at the whole thing ,but if you have any recommendations, I'd welcome them. I've gotten the best advise from the City Oak Tree expert and the Ranch Manager of the Disney Golden Oak Ranch which is a few miles from where I live. They have 880 acres and thousands of oak trees. When he had ONE tree that was infected, he had it cut down, the roots yanked out the tree taken off-site and buried. He also spent over $250,000 in Oak Tree chemical treatment and an equivalent amount of cost in watering. I don't have that kind of coin.
