We live in the middle of a city, but I think the sentiment is the same.
The first of a series of unhappy events took place today. We have ash trees in our yard which are barely clinging to life and one especially has become a threat to our home and our neighbor's house in the event of high winds or ice storms. It had been struck by lightning and was diagnosed with "a crack in a major crotch with significant dead wood above it" according to an arborist we consulted. The tree was over 80 feet tall and the trunk was 35 inches in diameter.
I was at home for the last half of the felling and the whole house would shake as the limbs hit the ground.
To the cats this was an armageddon. They hid in the basement most of the time then skulked along the outer edges of any room when they gathered enough courage to leave their hiding places.
(The beige house is the neighbor's.)
(And notice how I quoted the arborist as saying "crotch," as if to disassociate myself from the word. Do arborists feel weird using a term that many people normally reserved for describing specific parts of a body or the specific parts of underwear or jeans/pants/shorts that cover that part of the body? Do they ever laugh inappropriately when using the term? I probably would. I'll resist the juvenile impulse to continue my musings on the subject. Although I must say I didn't realize the tree and I shared a common physical attribute - a major crack in our crotches. OK, I'll stop.)
There are 2 more trees that will have to come down which means no mature trees on our lot. Now we need to decide what to plant. I would like some variety in species and of color in fall - so maybe a sugar maple and an oak and maybe one that grows relatively quickly, but lasts longer than an ash. Any suggestions?
2 comments:
Hey Kiddo, we have a large silver maple in our yard (I just typed an "n" instead of a "d" there!) and I've always said if it ever has to go I'd like an apple tree...for the apples, of course! Our neighbor has a nice one and I've always been jealous when I see all those apples on it! LOL Our silver maple is dull in the Fall but our soil isn't acidic enough for a sugar maple (so says the resident Plant Pathologist) or I'd go for one of them, for sure.
I sympathise with your loss, we've lost the three large elms from the front of our house to Dutch Elm Disease (yes, we still have elms in Fargo but they are slowly dying off). Our city forestry department has replaced them with three different trees, none of which I can remember at the moment (I'm in New York right now) but they are nothing exciting.
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