Tree dying? or just in Fall mode?

[corial06]

Hi, I am here in So. Cali and we have a large tree in the front yard, (just moved here) and all of the leaves suddenly started turning brown and falling off, now we have a practically bald tree from about halfway now down, the top leaves are still green, is it just seasonal fall or is it dying?

[rainbowgardener]

Seems a little early for seasonal fall, esp in SoCal, where many trees never lose their leaves. And it would be odd for seasonal fall to be the bottom leaves only. I live here in deciduous tree country and I've never seen trees looking like that. I would guess it is stressed and/or diseased. What kind of tree is it?

[john gault]

What's the species? I have two, Southern Magnolia and Live Oak. They are considered evergreens, but they both go through periods of shedding their leaves. Usually in the spring time, but not sure if that timeframe is biologically set. BTW, they never lose their entire canopy like the various Deciduous trees and usually the leaves are brown, not green or otherwise colored.

[rainbowgardener]

but even though your magnolia and live oak don't lose their leaves all at once, they don't lose just the bottom half either, they lose them from all over, a little at a time.

[john gault]

The magnolia doesn't seem to lose any leaves, I.e. the foliage looks the same year-around, but during that time of year they just keep falling and falling and falling....very strange. The Live Oak gets bare in certain sections, but not others, it varies from year to year. Also the amount of leaf loss varies from year to year, also kind of weird. Two winters ago it lost so many leaves (and I think it was mostly the bottom half) that I thought the thing was dying, but came back nicely later in the year.