Decapitated oak tree
May. 3rd, 2014 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeAfter we had the great big old cottonwood tree removed, a few years ago, we planted a scarlet oak, which I thought was the prettiest of oak trees, especially in the fall. And it grew quickly, and last year it even started giving enough shade to read beneath in summer. But in the second big snowstorm this winter, it bent clear over to the ground, and after a few days, I saw that the trunk was split, half-through, just above my height.
It’s a pin-oak, the kind where the leaves don’t fall off until just before the new ones arrive in the spring, and that was its undoing. If I’d thought to go out and knock off all the leaves when the snow fell and the ice came... but that’s hindsight.
Anyway, I had this grand idea that the upper part of the trunk could be hauled back up into place, and bolted there until it healed. In early April, the tree guy came to look, and he thought maybe that would work, but then he discussed it with his boss (the brave fellow who’d taken down the cottonwood), and they concluded that even if it healed okay, it would always have a fundamental weakness, which is not a safe thing in a tree that could get as big as a scarlet oak.
So, the compromise – we needed to lop off the top, just below the break, and maybe a branch can be trained upwards. I am skeptical. R. brought a special limbing saw over today to help us with this. So now we have 6' of decapitated oak tree living in the ground, and 19' of former oak tree lying on the ground. Poor oak tree.
After going out to the Mexican restaurant, J. and I went by his apartment to pick up some things he’d left behind. I’ve been wearing his bathrobe ever since, over my clothes. I feel like Arthur Dent.
It’s a pin-oak, the kind where the leaves don’t fall off until just before the new ones arrive in the spring, and that was its undoing. If I’d thought to go out and knock off all the leaves when the snow fell and the ice came... but that’s hindsight.
Anyway, I had this grand idea that the upper part of the trunk could be hauled back up into place, and bolted there until it healed. In early April, the tree guy came to look, and he thought maybe that would work, but then he discussed it with his boss (the brave fellow who’d taken down the cottonwood), and they concluded that even if it healed okay, it would always have a fundamental weakness, which is not a safe thing in a tree that could get as big as a scarlet oak.
So, the compromise – we needed to lop off the top, just below the break, and maybe a branch can be trained upwards. I am skeptical. R. brought a special limbing saw over today to help us with this. So now we have 6' of decapitated oak tree living in the ground, and 19' of former oak tree lying on the ground. Poor oak tree.
After going out to the Mexican restaurant, J. and I went by his apartment to pick up some things he’d left behind. I’ve been wearing his bathrobe ever since, over my clothes. I feel like Arthur Dent.