Not anything near an arborist but I do know fertilizer stakes are expensive. At our last house, we had several good sized trees planted in what was essentially hardpan soil. Languished for about 18 months, began to look like they were intent on dying, no matter the watering schedule. Rather than tree spikes, I put a 1" twist auger - 18" long - on a drill and bored holes all under the drip line of the trees. Poured a little low nitrogen fertilizer in each and watered long but seldom.
They thrived but they weren’t fighting anything other than poor soil.
My problem was root-bound, container grown trees, dropped in a a hole dug to fit in compacted soil. Needed lots of holes for watering and loosening the soil, along with fertilizer diffused over the entire root system. Three trees got a total of over 400 holes the first spring and the same the next. Think it was an 18" grid I drilled them on. Might help with a mature tree that is sickly, maybe not.
Mostly cutting trees these days, for a house place and trim for the house, but have learned that heavy equipment around trees will likely yield dead branches. Almost certainly if it’s too close and the ground is wet. Good luck with yours.
Yep, that is what I have been reading for years and then my maple was struck. I have added a mild compost and mulched and been watering 1" weekly. We shall see if it looks better or worse next year.
We had the crown die out on one of our maples and then it started on the one right next to it. All were planted around the same time. We had a tree company come (they are large trees) who found that the trees had “girdling” around the roots. Basically the roots were strangling themselves. They cut away some of the smaller roots and used and air spayed to break some of the dirt up. Also…we were told we were added too much mulch to the base of the tree creating an unhealthy environment! They did cutaway the dead crown and it is filling in nicely.
Nice to hear! I did mulch with the input of an arborist, making sure not to do a tree volcano hump around the trunk. Fingers crossed the tree does come back stronger next year, it’s a bit confusing about the crown one arborist suggested cutting back the entire tree 1/3, so really bringing down the crown in hopes that having less to maintain made it easier on the tree, but the die back is really branch by branch. And, of course, the next arborist said not to bother cutting it back for now.