Monday, October 4, 2010

My Poor Poplar Tree

We have an enormous poplar on the edge of our property. 

I've always been quite fond of it.  It's the only sizeable non-pine tree on our property and I always thought it was a cool shape.  Unfortunately, it has also always worried me.  I was just waiting for a big branch to fall off it (and probably crush my garage) during that big storm last winter.  See, it has what I thought was a rot of some sort, but my arborist assures me is some sort of "scar" from a past trauma in it's life.  Needless to say, this bad spot was supporting quite a bit of weight. 

But my tree survived our horrendous winter AND a wind storm that knocked our power out for the better part of a week... THEN this happened:

 

My neighbor's landlord had her son-in-law remove some trees that did not fare so well in that summertime wind storm, and tree #3 fell the wrong way.  This reminded me both of the power of a falling tree and the importance of having a professional handle bigger trees that are near any structure.  It was risky to cut a tree that close to a house, period, but one that tall without climbing equipment? Nuts. 

This terrible misfortune, that was very hard on the people who used to occupy that house, did at least teach my neighborhood a lesson.  There have been trees and severely damaged buildings going down all over the place.  I called Harry, good family friend & tree guy, out here last week to look at my sickly poplar.  He was up in the air as to whether or not we could just top it or it would need to come down.  This morning though, we discovered that the mid-sized branches were snapping like dead twigs.  That is the sign of an unhealthy tree. 

 

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