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BIDDING FAREWELL TO MORE TREES

December 4, 2014

You won’t believe what is happening at our house today. In fact, it was so disturbing to me that I left as quickly as I could this morning without so much as grabbing a photo of it first.

More trees are coming down. Does anyone else get that sick feeling in their stomach when they have to take down a tree, even when you really have no choice in the matter?

We’ve owned our house for a little over 12 years now and I bet we’ve taken down 20 trees in that time. It sort of sickens me. I can think of only maybe two that have come down for purely aesthetic reasons; trees that were failing but weren’t in danger of falling on anything important.

 

This all started a couple weeks ago when we discovered that half a maple tree right on our lot line had fallen over in a big wind storm and landed on top of our neighbor’s work forklift/cherry picker thing. We paid for the damage (ouch, but what are you going to do) and knew we needed to get the other half of that tree taken down quickly.

We have a great tree guy who I’ve sung the praises of before, but it doesn’t pay to have him come out to just do one tree. Most of his cost is in assembling his crew and getting his equipment out. So if you can lump several trees into one visit the cost per tree goes down dramatically.

Here’s a photo of our great tree guy when we had the huge birch tree cut down a couple years ago.

In addition to the half maple, we also had him take down a multi-trunked cedar tree that was hanging way over our neighbor’s property. We don’t want to take any chances.

Those two trees (or tree and a half as the case may be) are not terribly troubling losses. But the two others we had taken down today are.

One is a relatively large ash tree to the north of the house that, just by chance, we discovered was completely rotten last week. It obviously has not been in the best of health as it has been dropping branches and there’s a lot of dead wood on the top, but it wasn’t until last weekend that we found that you could stick your finger right into the trunk. I’m not sure what caused this. I peeled off the bark (which was easy to do as it was like a sponge) and did not find any sign of emerald ash borer, an exotic beetle that is decimating the ash tree population east of the Mississippi River and particularly in the Midwest. They leave winding paths under the bark of the tree (see photo below). Once a tree has emerald ash borers there is nothing that can be done to save it.

What damage from emerald ash borers looks like.

I noticed that there was a large nail in the trunk of the tree about 6 inches from the ground. I have no idea why it was put there but I wouldn’t be surprised if that created a wound that helped allow whatever claimed its life to enter.

That ash tree probably would not have fallen on our house if it did topple. But it most certainly would have fallen on or gotten entangled with an even bigger ash tree to the east of it. This tree looked to be in mostly good health but almost two years ago our tree guy pointed out to us that it has an 8-foot-long longitudinal crack on the north side of it. We’ve been watching it carefully and in fall we noticed that two more cracks developed. And this big tree would absolutely crush our house if it came down in the direction in which it’s leaning. Our tree guy gave us a really good deal to take it down at the same time as the other trees.

The broken tree that started it all.
 

Who knows, it might have been just fine for years, but after seeing the damage that half of a smaller tree caused to our neighbor’s vehicle, I’m a bit paranoid about the whole idea of trees falling over.

Unfortunately the big tree was also my bird feeder tree. We’ll have to find a new place to relocate the feeders to because the birds really need the food at this time of the year.

As for the future, I’m hoping we can find a large tree that will work in the area near where the ashes came down so we can get a start on the trees of the future. We still have a wooded area full of hundreds of trees, but I’m just not comfortable that I know our ratio of trees removed to trees planted is not where I’d like it to be.

The four trees we had removed today needed to come down, I have no doubt. But it doesn’t make the sound of chainsaws and wood chippers any easier to bear and it won’t make their absence any easier to get used to.

 

ash tree tree removal trees
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
3 Comments

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Comments

  1. rusty duck says: December 5, 2014 at 8:43 am

    Hi Erin. I can sympathise with how you feel. We also have a large wooded area and in this case left unmanaged for many years. The trees are in a very bad state. We've already had to have 30 removed that were too close to the house and putting it at risk and more will follow. I hate the sound of chainsaws too but sometimes you have no choice. The important thing is that the trees which remain will grow stronger with the benefit of more light and space.

    Reply
  2. t says: December 10, 2014 at 9:01 pm

    I am feeling heartsick about an old split birch that is going to have to come down in our front yard. I love that tree. A gardening friend told me to think of birch trees as renewable resources.

    Now have to start thinking about what to plant in its place – we live on a well traveled road and I want something so we will once again have shade and some privacy; trouble is the electrical lines.

    Reply
  3. Jannise says: July 9, 2020 at 10:04 am

    We are having two oaks taken down today for safety reasons and my heart is breaking. I am a proud tree hugger and already thinking of what I can plant ASAP to reverse the removal of these hundred year old oaks. Thanks for sharing your feelings… makes me feel a little less crazy!

    Reply

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener
I fell in love with gardening through container de I fell in love with gardening through container design and it’s probably still my favorite type of gardening. My trip to Philadelphia area gardens was full of so many excellent ideas. For several years I’ve been enamored with clustered pots, but in my opinion they work best when they are able to stand alone in a space. And you probably know me well enough by now to know that as far as I’m concerned, the bigger the pot, the better. Feast your eyes on these beauties and use your zooming fingers to really get into those nooks and crannies. 

Don’t forget to save your favorites because you know you’re going to be looking for them come next spring. 😀

Photos 1 & 2: Amazing container cluster at @longwoodgardens  that works particularly well because of the restraint used in the design. Also how many different ways is the universe going to tell me I need to grow agave before I actually listen?

Photo 3: This was probably favorite display I saw the whole time and of course it’s from the masters at @chanticleergarden This is a master class in texture. It’s also probably not attainable for the average home gardener because it relies heavily on tropicals that need proper overwintering in order to reach a good size. But there’s no reason why I (or you) couldn’t use this as inspiration to create a similar feel with other plants. 

Photo 4: Strappy foliage, bright orange and colorful pots create such a good doorway collection at @chanticleergarden 

Photo 5, 6 & 7: Similar colors were used at a patio doorway at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm home garden. A pot is perfectly framed by an arbor off a side patio. The front entrance has a pink theme (and an amazing feature pot that I couldn’t show here because all my shots are vertical). 

Photo 8: Back to @chanticleergarden where I could have studied this container planting for an hour just to soak up all the detail. 

Photo 9: And while I love a pot with a lot going on, never underestimate the power of a simply planted, gorgeous pot, like this one at @abunting64 garden Belvidere. 

#gbfling2023
I think every garden probably needs a little bit o I think every garden probably needs a little bit of water, even if it’s just a bird bath. All of the fabulous gardens I saw recently in the Philadelphia area incorporated water into them. Here are just a few examples of how lovely these water features were. 

@paxsonhillfarm @northviewgarden @brandywinecottage @longwoodgardens #gbfling2023
Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the vi Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the view even though we all know that most of us rarely take the opportunity to use them. The seating I saw in gardens in the Philadelphia area reflected their gardens and all were special. 

Make sure to share your favorite!

Photo 1:  I adored these perfectly lichen-covered chairs at @brandywinecottage

Photo 2: Great lichen game on this bench at Wayne Guymon’s mind-blowing garden WynEden. 

Photo 3: Perhaps my favorite seating moment of the whole trip was this chair in @jennyrosecarey @northviewgarden . Not only was it perfectly lichen covered (are you sensing a theme here?) but a volunteer cleome was growing right up through the middle of it. Unfortunately this photo of it isn’t grata because by this point in the trip my phone (I didn’t want to use my DSLR in the middle of the tropical storm so I switched to my phone) was getting very grumpy about the rain. 

Photo 4: I’d be happy to hang out on these chairs in @abunting64 ‘s gorgeous garden Belvidere. I loved this space. 

Photo 5: Color was the name of the game on this patio at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm. 

Photo 6: The most original table and benches I saw were at @abunting64 garden. This was a portion of the garden that was actually on the neighbors’ property adjacent to Andrew’s. It had been a vegetable garden but is getting a bit too shady so it will soon have a new life. 

Photo 7: We visited Barbara Tiffany’s Mill Fleurs in a deluge, which is a shame, and dotted throughout the property are examples of her husband Tiff’s amazing furniture. This was, called the Centipede was upholstered and quite different from the others. All were amazing works of art. 

Photos 8 and 9: The @scott_arboretum at @swarthmorecollege had some excellent seating, from brand new @deebenarc chairs to more lichen-covered charmers.

#gbfling2023
*** I can already see that some people do not unde *** I can already see that some people do not understand humor so let me just say this: 1. I was fully aware of the escaped convict situation (I’m an avid follower of the news, which is common for us journalists). 2. It’s ok to laugh about the fact that I’ve missed the Longwood meadow twice through weird circumstances while being a rational adult and realizing that I’m not making light of the situation that led to the meadow being mown. ***

I missed seeing @longwoodgardens beautiful meadow the first time I visited so I was excited to see it the second time. Not so fast! Turns out it had to be mown down during the search for an escaped convict who was hiding out there (at least that’s what I was told was the reason for the mowing). He’ll never see goldenrod the same way again! 😀

That whole situation was really unfortunate for @longwoodgardens (not to mention everyone who lives in the area), which had to be closed for about a week while the hunt was on!
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