The Daily Peeve / Rant

[catherine]

My neighbor owns a couple of acres that line the street coming into our community. Maple trees line the road.

Well, right now, I see (and hear) that there is either VERY HEAVY PRUNING going on, or he is cutting down these trees. I don't know why.. the leaves get tar spot every fall, but that's not a serious tree disease. It's stressing me out. He doesn't have any other trees on his property except for a few dwarf apple trees. Not sure what his rationale is. He may be trying to remove shade from his raised beds. That's reasonable enough, but why not just move his raised beds? He has a yard that looks like a standard golf fairway. Yes. His land, his trees, but I'll miss those trees when I go for walks. I don't understand arborphobia at all. (enlighten me, IL

[early morning]

I'm with you, catherine - I hate to see a tree cut. We had to take out a very large, very old, and somewhat dangerous soft maple, after we lost half of it in a storm last year. Depending on which way it went, it could have taken out the power for a while, or severely damaged the living portion of the neighbors' house, or blocked the road. Thankfully, the part that fell just paralleled the road and hurt nothing. It was close to 100', and at least 80 years old. I cried. We have several others that are going, bit by bit, but I try to plant a tree or large shrub every year to offset their future loss. I like shade! I don't care for manicured lawns, and I am convinced that lawn weed-killer/fertilizer use was developed and heavily promoted by the spawn of Satan, lol. Although I will admit to spraying poison ivy from time to time. Our lawn is full of dandelion and violets right now, and I love them all. It's like a huge flower bed with really short flowers!

[razz]

Arborphobia is a serious disease that needs to be eradicated and comes with a variety of symptoms.

Sheer ignorance is a key one leading to planting trees where they interfere with overhead power or phone line and then the tree get mutilated or cut down when problems arise;

Planting material in shady areas and being upset when it struggles blaming the trees instead of personal stupidity. Check the environment before planting sun-loving plants!

Another symptom is clear cutting an area to 'harvest' the crop but failing to leave any 'mast' trees to reseed and nurture the seedlings;

Some think of trees as concrete poles - in order to clear this longterm wooded area, simply exchange this area for another that is arid and rocky.

Plant a monoculture of trees and then act amazed when disease or a pest invades and destroys the crop or generates conditions for serious forest fires.

Place no value on trees, instead clearing areas for short season crops and then watching the carbon in the air spike to hazardous levels; think Amazon.

See oneself and the only important living being on this earth and every other living thing as of little or no value

Can you tell that I am mentally healthy about trees. I see them as long-lived forms of life that thrive in harmony with other life benefiting our world in so many ways in terms that we fail, choose not to understand and destroying ourselves in the process.

[iris lilies]

My neighbor owns a couple of acres that line the street coming into our community. Maple trees line the road.

Well, right now, I see (and hear) that there is either VERY HEAVY PRUNING going on, or he is cutting down these trees. I don't know why.. the leaves get tar spot every fall, but that's not a serious tree disease. It's stressing me out. He doesn't have any other trees on his property except for a few dwarf apple trees. Not sure what his rationale is. He may be trying to remove shade from his raised beds. That's reasonable enough, but why not just move his raised beds? He has a yard that looks like a standard golf fairway. Yes. His land, his trees, but I'll miss those trees when I go for walks. I don't understand arborphobia at all. (enlighten me, IL

well you asked.

First and foremost in my world, trees are The Enemy of iris and lilies. For that matter they are The
Enemy of 90% of what we wish to grow. Think of trees as the biggest bully on the block, a 20’ monster that sucks up all of the light and water and nutrients leaving little for innocent bitty perennials and shrubs 1/10 the size of trees. Giant assed bullies they are. Since 10% of what we wish to grow are actual trees (well behaved, controlled fruit trees) they are not all bad in our yard.

And then, they are mean to old houses. They malevolently drop limbs on old houses and even sometimes do kamikaze moves, uprooting their entire trunk, to smash a house. They plant themselves in rooflines and eaves of old houses and their roots and tendrils weaken mortar causing eventual failure of brick structures.

They provide a vector for their partners in crime, squirrels. Squirrels carry out further damage to gardens and old houses. The team of trees and squirrels can be a threat to civilized society.

Once in a while trees even kill humans. Many years ago one murdered a child in one of our city parks. I can guarantee you that now, when we call in a dangerous tree situation, City Forestry Dept. speeds right out to asses it.

Arborphobia, haha! But you know there is more than a grain of truth in my words! I think it is important to represent the “other side” since “trees are good” is pretty much unquestionably accepted by Americans. Just think critically about those trees you [the generic you] claim to love; consider carefully when you plant one what happens when it grows to 20’+ tall.

[catherine]

well you asked.

First and foremost in my world, trees are The Enemy of iris and lilies. For that matter they are The
Enemy of 90% of what we wish to grow. Think of trees as the biggest bully on the block, a 20’ monster that sucks up all of the light and water and nutrients leaving little for innocent bitty perennials and shrubs 1/10 the size of trees. Giant assed bullies they are. Since 10% of what we wish to grow are actual trees (well behaved, controlled fruit trees) they are not all bad in our yard.

And then, they are mean to old houses. They malevolently drop limbs on old houses and even sometimes do kamikaze moves, uprooting their entire trunk, to smash a house. They plant themselves in rooflines and eaves of old houses and their roots and tendrils weaken mortar causing eventual failure of brick structures.

They provide a vector for their partners in crime, squirrels. Squirrels carry out further damage to gardens and old houses. The team of trees and squirrels can be a threat to humanity.

Once in a while trees even kill humans. Many years ago one murdered a child in one of our city parks. I can guarantee you that now, when we call in a dangerous tree situation, City Forestry Dept. speeds right out to asses it.

Arborphobia, haha! But you know there is more than a grain of truth in my words! I think it is important to represent the “other side” since “trees are good” is pretty much u questionably accepted by Americans. Just think critically about those trees you [the generic you] claim to love; consider carefully when you plant one what happens when it grow to 20’+ tall.

I'm definitely going to delicately ask my neighbor why he is cutting down the trees. They are mature maples--beautiful. They do not surround his house. He does not have extensive gardens (just 4 small raised beds). The trees were not diseased as far as I can see. I can't imagine that he would spend all that money cutting down trees after all this time living here without just cause. He's owned the house for many years, so it's not like a new person coming in and cutting down everything because they don't like trees. (ahem). So I can only imagine he must have a good reason. But I'm still bummed. I'm going to have to plant a few trees of my own to block the view of his boring, barren lot.

[iris lilies]

All of that above said, I would like to relate the tale of trees over 30 years at our city property.

We have always had 20+ fruit trees and a regular program of replacing them, because fruit trees don’t live a long time.

we have, bar none, the best looking pin oak tree in the prime of its life, carefully sited by us for an eventual garage built 15 years after we planted that tree. But we planned carefully for it, and it does well. We have had it professionally shaped at least once on our dime, and DH did it at least once with his crew from the arbor company.

we also planted two Ash trees as permanent shade trees on the West side of our house. Brutal heat there! Well. You can guess what happened. One died prematurely at about age 20 and the other had to be taken down before disease vot it. We will not replace them, I can now grow iris successfully in places where that was impossible before. But my hostas are suffering from too much sun!

Our street trees, 3 of them, are messy and stupid. The silver maple tree pushes its roots up under our brick sidewalk and ruins it and make it unsafe. The other maple tree drops limb after limb. The city has marked it for removal but they are too swamped and it is not high priority. The Nradford Pear, well, everyone knows no one is planting those any more, they are invasive. But I will admit to being responsible for choosing it 30 years ago.oddly, it survives every windstorm we have, unusual for its type.

[iris lilies]

Catherine, from your description is does seems silly that neighbor is taking down trees in a pleasing row that are not diseased. But the grove may have problems unseen by ypu.

We have a big blue spruce in our community garden that blocks sunlight to several of the beds. It is wrong for the space and doesn’t belong there, but the long term head of the garden really wanted her own private park, forget about growing vegetables. Anyway, it periodically gets bagworms. Looks bad. But I don’t even breath a word about taking it down because the hue and cry would be extreme, it is a battle I will not enter.

meanwhile the stupid woman pays landscapers $20-$40 per hour to handpick off the bagworms. Yes, you read that right. It’s only neighborhood money, not her own, so she spends it freely.

[rosarugosa]

Catherine, do you know what kind of maples they are? I love trees, but I definitely do not love Norway Maples, which are invasive and have all those greedy surface roots.

[catherine]

IL, a nightmare would be if he told them to take down the trees that line the street but he really meant the 3 ashes on the adjacent street, which *will* have to be taken down eventually. My other nightmare would be when I ask him why he removed them he says something stupid like, "They were hard to mow around."--this guy is religious about his riding mower--every Friday afternoon, he's out there mowing. I have no problem with that, but he seems like the kind of guy who is uber-efficient and wants nothing in his way.

Rosa, no, these are not Norway Maples.. I believe they're sugar maples. There are no roots pushing up on the gravel road.

[iris lilies]

A mature row of undiseased sugar maples would be worth keeping indeed.

There are many cultivars of the sugar maple class but I think all of them are considered nice trees