This beautiful, ancient Southern Live Oak tree in my neighbor's yard is now dead of a completely preventable cause!
This beautiful tree, which is well over 100 years old with a crown that easily reaches 75 feet across, met its untimely end in an unexpected way. It was loved to death. 
My neighbor takes very good care of his yard. He and his family tend it with an energy and attention I envy.
Sadly, he did not know what many people do not know—trees can and do drown.
Southern Live Oaks, also known as Quercus virginiana, prefer a sandy, well drained loam soil, but they will grow in clay soils, which is what we have here.
My neighbor and his wife love flowers and have many beautiful beds that they tend. One of these surrounds the base of the tree, as seen in the photo below.
Those pretty red and orange flowers around the base of the tree are canna lillies, tropical, water-loving plants with showy foliage and beautiful flowers. The bushes in the foreground are also tropical plants—oleanders. The yard also has a thick carpet of beautiful St. Augustine sod, another tropical , hence thirsty, plant. Keeping the flowers pretty killed the tree, which drowned in the heavy clay soil.
My neighbor now faces the trouble and expense of removing this huge tree, and his electric bill this summer will continue to remind him of the tree's demise.
Please don't do this to your trees! There are flowers that don't need lots of water. That's what Xeriscape is about.
Worst of all for me, I don't think he knows why the tree died. I'll have to ask him.
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Comments: 12
Should they come, then here's a tidbit - another thing about oaks. The deciduous kind. If their leaves are a yellow-green, a chartreuse - then that means they're anemic. They have a condition called "iron chlorosis anemia." They can receive supplements for that, through the soil at the roots.
Great picture essay worth reading.
Blessings