People but also animals and plants suffered from the sustained heat and drought this record-breaking summer. This of course brings up the obvious question as to how the treeme trees on the plantations in Saxony-Anhalt and Baden-Württemberg are doing.

Good news: Our trees love this weather! Since they have a taproot, they can grow deep down in the ground and thus remain at the groundwater level of the planting area for a long time. The ground was completely saturated at the beginning of the summer. Our treeme trees originally came from a place that is subtropical to tropical, with longer periods of drought. For that reason our trees can cope very well with temperatures of this kind.

Nonetheless, these were exceptional circumstances this year. The lack of rain from May/June definitely produced more stress for treeme trees as well. The lack of humidity in the air means only moderate growth of the trunks and leaves. Since we continuously watered the trees from the beginning of the season, we have now determined that all the trees are sound and healthy. They simply reduce the amount of surface growth during the time that there is no rain, but without suffering any damage. The treeme trees will catch up on the surface growth that was reduced in the past few months with the first rainfall.

Overall, it was a good year for our trees. We are hoping for a sunny September and a mild October and the chances for compensatory growth this year are good. The adjacent seas such as the North Sea and the Baltic Sea have become very warm this year and can act as a heat reservoir for a long summer.

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