Sad to say, the huge Oak tree that stands behind our house, sheltering it from the summer sun, giving the squirrels a place to retreat from our cats, and holding up one end of our clothesline, is no more. This morning a crew came in and carefully cut it down, piece by piece, practically dismantling it.
It really did have to go. Several years ago it was struck by lightning* and it lost a branch, leaving a huge scar. (Calling it a “branch” is misleading. The branch was bigger than most trees)**, and, although it has been healing over, it has recently weathered through, and the trunk is clearly hollow. It’s structurally unsound.
When they took it down, we found a huge empty space a foot in diameter and three to four feet long that had been excavated by carpenter ants, at a distance of 15 feet from the ground. We were wary that the tree might break at that weak point in a windstorm or from the weight of ice in an ice storm. Several of our neighbors had similarly lost trees, all of the providentially missing their houses. We didn’t want to be the ones to lode the lottery.
I had them leave me several big pieces for firewood, and one huge cross-section to use as a chopping block and maybe a seat or frustrum. Counting the rings, I get about ninety or so. The tree long predates the building of our house. Sad to see it go, but I’ve been worrying for years about it falling onto our roof.
*The oak was sacred to Zeus, the God of Lightning, and it has long been believed that oaks were more frequently struck by lightning. Actually, a European study found that, although oaks are more frequently struck than most other trees, Poplars are actually struck more often than oaks.
There’s a sugar maple that I sometimes make a detour to go visit. It grows outside the apartment building in which I grew up. It stood just outside my bedroom window. During fall, it would turn bright yellow. If I woke up just at dawn, when the weather conditions were right, the pink light filtering though the yellow leaves was so otherworldly, that I couldn’t be sure that I hadn’t died in my sleep.
We had a huge oak next to the house. It kind of enveloped the whole left side of the house. It was right outside the window at the bottom of our stairs. A few years back there was a series of large thunderstorms and windstorms come through the area. One night I came down the stairs and the tree wasn’t quite where it had been before. I went outside and it had completely heaved up out of the ground on one side and the whole thing was leaning against the corner of the house.
We were actually incredibly lucky, as the corner of the house was preventing it from falling and destroying the house behind us. Also, because it had hit the house, home insurance approved the claim immediately; we were told that if it hadn’t damaged the house, they probably still would have paid eventually but it would have been a hassle. The actual damage to the house was minimal, just some minor carpentry and roof tiles.
It was certainly sad to see it go, it was one of the reasons we bought the place, but it was the tree or the house, and I like having a place to live. Plus, it solved my annual literal-shit-ton-of-leaves problem in one fell swoop.
About a dozen years ago I lost two trees in my back yard to a lightning strike: An Elm ( which I liked ) and a Sweet Gum ( which I didn’t ). They were about 10-15 feet apart and a bolt of lightning hit them and left long sections of “stripes” of missing bark and exposed wood, and made a furrow in the ground where the roots were…and scared the ever-loving shite out of me. They began to lose leaves soon after and they never came back the following spring. They had to go since they would create a fall hazard to my and my neighbor’s house.
At first I really liked the fact that the rear gutters of my house didn’t clog with leaves and it made for so much less maintenance and hassle.
But I’ve really come to miss them due to the esthetics and the wonderful shade they provided for the back yard, patio, and rear walls of the house. Now all that is an absolute inferno from May through September for 12 hours a day, as the sun focuses it’s laser beam upon my environs. I’d like to plant another, but it’ll take decades for it to provide any shade of note.
Sorry for your loss, but like they say, the 2 best times to plant a tree are 20 yrs ago and right now!
The other day I biked past our 1st house. We planted a red oak out front approx 25-30 yrs ago. It is an AMAZINGLY mature tree. I was surprised it would get so huge in that time. Really makes me feel great for having given that to the future.
Right now I’m psyched that our 3 yr old Swamp White Oak has acorns for the 1st time. I know I’ll be cursing them in short time. And the Dawn Cypress and the Gingko are looking sturdy.
Good job keeping the wood for both firewood and chopping. Thanks for making me look up “frustrum” - any particular reason why do you want one? While you are in the mood, I recommend reading Oak: The Frame of Civilization. Here’s one back atcha - balanoculture!
Zeus is not going to be pleased. But it sounds like this oak’s time had come, sorry to say.
I planted a white oak sapling in the back yard about ten years ago. It’s a slow grower, but hopefully will be a majestic tree to play under for the grandchildren of the next couple to live in our house.
The crew had to come back with a special truck to haul away the huge sections of the bole of the tree. It was a huge box on wheels with a Claw at one end – kind of like those amusement-park claws, only it had two jaws, not three arms, and it didn’t drop the things it picked up. The guy operating it was pretty good, hauling two or three of the smaller pieces at a time.
Our Engineer cat, Hermes, was fascinated by this. He braced himself against the front window and watched with great attention as the claw worked. (our other cat, Hestia, spent most of the time under the bed, although she came out later on and superintended from deep in the shadows.)
I grew up thinking that oaks were among the strongest and sturdiest possible of trees. I have been disabused of that notion in recent years, as I noticed that the branches get huge and heavy and are not well-enough supported for their weight. In recent years I have noticed that many if not most of the trees that lose large (i.e. newsworthy) branches in storms are oaks. If, I mean when, you plant a tree to take this one’s place, maybe something else would be better and last even longer. I don’t have a specific suggestion, but I can put you in touch with a good arborist if you like.
Ah yes, oak trees. When my parents bought the family home in 1969, it was surrounded by oaks that were there when the place was built in 1928. :eek: Two came out to be replaced by the pool, and the one that hung over the house was removed, 6" at a time, by bucket truck. The one in back, aka the Racoon condo, got removed before it fell on the house. However, the tree by the front stairs, known as squirrel central, was not so lucky. After hurricane Rita, I got a call from my mom asking me to come over with my camera. I asked why and she replied that “Remember the tree at the end of the walk?” “Yes” I replied. “It’s in you old bedroom”.:smack:
I could take photos from the root ball into my old room. A 60’ tube. The contents spread themselves out, and the grass grew nicely where many feet of varmit poo, nests and decayed tree guts landed.
I would have loved to count the rings, but the center 6" of the stump at ground level was gone. I’m surprised it didn’t come down in hurricane Bob, which got a neighbors huge oak.
A real bummer when an old tree dies. We have a 40-year old dogwood in our back yard, that provides some shade over the deck. If that ever croaks, we’ll probably sell the house. A half dozen blocks from us there is a copper beech tree that is over 100 years old and is enormous. It’s one of the city’s “heritage” trees, which means, thankfully, that it can’t be cut or even trimmed without approval. It’s probably over 100 feet tall and a good 60-80 feet across at its widest. The diameter of the trunk has to be at least seven feet. We walk by there every once in a while just to check up on it and to pay respects.
We had to have a couple of oaks taken down close to the house, plus a huge one at the far end of the yard - it had died and too many of its branches overhung the road. We did not want to risk someone driving by and getting whomped. On the plus side, since it was way in the back, we didn’t have to pay to have it removed, and one of our neighbors who heats mostly with wood came by and took most of it.
We also had the paulownia from hell removed from the middle of the back yard. Its offsprings from hell sprouted for 4 or 5 years after the tree was gone - I caught them all before they got out of hand.
First off, there are all manner of quercus. Any carpenter knows red oak is quite different from white. And live oaks are entirely different. Walking around my neighborhood, I’m aware of passing red, white, but, pin, and swamp white.
I think oak wood is relatively high in terms of both tensile and ductile strength. If it weren’t, I doubt it would have been used so widely for shipbuilding.
Tree “sturdiness” also concerns rooting habits. My previous understanding was that most oaks grew very wide, relatively shallow roots, which rendered them susceptible to soil compaction in public parks. But I recently read something discussing oak’s deep rooting habits, so I don’t know.
Then there is also disease/pest resistance…
A red or white oak is certainly much sturdier than a willow, silver maple, sycamore, cottonwood… Not sure how it would compare to a hickory, red maple, ash, etc.
I’ve got a sizeable hackberry in my backyard. From what I’ve read, the only way to get rid of that sucker would be to nuke it from orbit. And trimming it, that is some hard wood! But I doubt that will take off as a specimen planting.
We had a beautiful maple tree in the corner of our backyard and it was glorious in the fall. A few years ago during a windstorm a huge Douglas fir crashed down and smashed it to bits. I was so sad to lose it, still miss it. My husband has had several Douglas firs taken down per the tree guy recommendations but we hadn’t gotten to that one yet.
