I love trees and when we were house shopping we chose a house that had several mature trees, even though it’s just a city lot. Unfortunately we are likely going to have to take a mimosa out as it’s growing into not only the power line but a couple of data cables as well. Trimming it back would remove so much that we might as well just take it out. We plan on putting a deck or patio in that spot anyway. The mimosa is messy but I like my trees and just on principle I’m sorry to see it go.
My BIL and SIL bought a 3-acre piece of property a few years ago that had numerous mature cedars on it as well as some younger pine trees. He cut down every single tree, put in a double-wide, and has slowly filled most of the property with old junk: broken down cars, RV’s, trailers, and mountains of miscellaneous scraps of cars and machinery. It looks the bastard child of a wrecking yard and a landfill. It’s revolting.
On the St. John’s River in our backyard (1973-1994) we had what had to be one of the biggest and tallest Loblolly Pines in the entire state. After we sold the place it got blown down by one of the hurricanes that blew through nearby (wanna say 2009). The trunk was easily close to 5 feet in diameter, and I regret not putting my trigonometric skills to the task by estimating its height, but has to be well over 100 feet tall. I half-jokingly suggested to my dad to build a treehouse up there.
I live in a condo complex, and to make it more attractive when they were selling the original units, they’d planted a ton of trees. We’ve had to have many trees removed over the four decades because they were too jammed together to grow healthily. But they’ve left the bulk of them. thank dog.
We have the ash borer. Trees are dying all over the place but for the most part if any ash still look healthy I ain’t having it cut; it’s way too late to stop the borer, and what if that apparently healthy tree is resistant and could help save the species? Highly unlikely but not quite impossible.
However the big tree just to the north of the house, which has had a gaping hole in the trunk and looked about to die ever since I moved here in the 1980’s but which has stubbornly refused to get any deader and greened up every year over most of its top, decided the borer is the last straw and developed much larger dead areas this year. It’s really close to both the house and the power lines. I felt awful but I had it cut.
That tree had shaded the house for probably most of the old house’s life, and conveniently shaded the greenhouse in the summer but not early spring ever since I had the greenhouse put in. It had the remains of a tree house from the previous owners, which by the time I got here wouldn’t safely hold a person but which often held one of my favorite cats when he was alive.
I went out and talked to the tree for a while before it was taken down. I think I was forgiven. I hope so.
This year the mountain ash skipped blooming. It’s Getting used to more sun maybe? Significant trim on close white pine branches this spring.
Lost a magnificent imo red oak last year. Cut it down, some oak issue lots of dead branches, 100 yo est. its canopy threatening the house and occupants. But in absense of its shade this year that quadrant of the yard is going insane with growth. Full on tall prairie over your head every sun loving seed that gets a toehold is shouting out I am here!
Had to take out a 80 foot fir tree the other week. $2k+ for the firewood. I would have preferred a living tree but it was dead and threatened 3 houses.
My brother had two large trees cut at his old house, on the utility company’s dime, when he found out that they do that. I later had opportunity to inquire about this, and they told me that those trees didn’t qualify, but I had nothing to lose by asking.
p.s. Hope you’re still enjoying your retirement, QtheM!
A couple of years ago during a really windy day (not even a storm) a massive branch from one of the trees split from the trunk and fell on the power lines. That incident is what got all of this started.
After the trees came down yesterday, we looked at them and noticed that both had large splits beginning in their trunks where large branches were. So I guess it was best that they were taken down. It still makes me sad and that part of the yard looks empty now. We will plant new trees in that area. We haven’t decided what kind of tree though.
I’m glad to see that there are so many tree lovers here!
When we bought our house 5 years ago there was a towering tree in the front yard. It was dying, however, and we had it removed a couple of years ago. Growing at its base was a wild-planted palm. Fast forward to today and that palm is a good 9 feet tall and growing like a weed. If it matches the others in the neighborhood it should get a good 40 - 60 feet eventually. Hope I’m still around to see that.
My parents have been in their house for over fifty years and none of the surviving trees in front are particularly distinguished. (We used to have a Japanese Maple tree in the middle of the front yard, but it died during a Gypsy Moth caterpillar invasion decades ago.) They do have a nice oak tree in the wild back yard and when I was visiting recently, I regretted not planting an acorn from that tree. Had I done so when they moved in, we might today have a nice fifty-year-old oak tree in the front yard. (On the other hand, I was like five or six years old when we moved to the house, so I was probably not that far-sighted.)
I had three enormous (40 foot or more) Norway maples cut down, they were encroaching on the house and were in danger of falling down on the roof or fence. I felt bad. I had it done for a reasonable price. The only thing is they left a layer of mulch on the lawn. They fed the cut up trees into a chipper and took it all away, but there is still a layer of mulch.
When we moved into our house 50 years ago, the street was lined with beautiful elms. Within 10 years they were all dead and gone (with one exception that survived another 25 years). The town then planted new trees. They decided to avoid monoculture and alternated honey locusts and … ash. All the ash have been removed in the past ten years. We moved three years ago, but there were a number of ashes that grew spontaneously in our back yard. I wonder what the new owners have done with them.
My wife grew up in Salem, NJ where they had a 300 year old oak, that had some historical significance (a treaty with Indians was signed under it). By the time I saw it, it was on life support with wires supporting the outer branches. Sadly, it died a few years ago. Google: Salem Oak.
We have a river birch in our back yard which I think the previous owner of the house planted. It’s kind of a pain in the ass - it drops male catkins, then female catkins, then there’s about 10 gazillion seeds and teeny little birch trees trying to grow everywhere. It drops leaves and sticks all year, and if a branch gets injured during a wet spring, it’ll pee.
It’s now huge and gorgeous and as long as it stays healthy it’s not going anywhere. We’ve had a hard time getting trees to stay healthy here and I’d be very reluctant to mess with success.
When I was a kid, we had a silver maple, 40 or 50 feet tall, HUGE trunk, had to go because of root rot and on the back of the house there was a big old locust tree that bifurcated around 6 or maybe 7 feet up, that we built a tree house in. It came down in stages over the years. The power company took one side first and then a few years later it got hit by lightning and we had to take the rest, it was 40 or 50 feet tall also. The yard, the house were never the same after those trees went.
