There is nothing so nasty as tree paranoia.

A couple of weeks ago we had a microburst or something like it at 2am. It ran straight down our street and knocked down several magnificent oak trees. Several homes were lightly damaged and two were almost broken in half. One car was crushed. Noone was hurt.
All the damage is being repaired but far worse is occurring.
On an adjacent street, which was not touched, 2 homeowners are having their yards cleared of 100 year old, healthy trees.
As bad as shooting rare animals for trophies IMO.
We had an incident 20 years ago when one large tree took out a house across the street. No knee jerk paranoia then. The odds of this happening in the current owners lifetimes are tiny.
The trees are theirs but what a waste.

We can talk. I live in a neighborhood where the builders took care to save as many mature trees as possible. A couple of people bought homes in the area and right away cut down every tree. I don’t understand.

Trees are the greatest cause of power failure and damage in my area when a storm comes through.
Bushes are OK but trees are not our friends.

Trees aren’t paranoid:

Here’s one thing you won’t see,
a tree obsessed with being,
much of anything.
Trees are just happening.

You’ll never hear one scream,
protesting lumberjacks,
with axes glistening.
Trees are not listening,…

To all them things that rocks can never know.
All the joy and love and hate and sorrow.
And as we kill yesterday,
and we crucify tomorrow,
to all them things that rocks,
can never know.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yhfa-SWvW4

However, there is this 40" caliper, lightning-struck tulip poplar sittin’ 10 feet off my back deck that I think is getting ready to lower the boom on me and the roof joists. It ain’t paranoia. It’s just potentials in unpoplararity. “Damn I shall miss its crowning achievement,” says the shady fella.

I admit to being tree paranoid… Manchineel brings out the heebie jeebies in me… Partly cause I would rather deal with hundred foot tall pines than something that wants to drip poison on me.
I dunno CWDH… Trees persist… They die and become nurse logs for more of their own. Of course those clearcutters left no bodies.
I sing to my trees. There are some hundred around me ( mostly pine and beech) that could do bodily harm and the occasional gnarly half dead oak which is polite enough to shed in pieces… The Pileated Woodpecker takes great joy in old trees and I in him.

When I grew up in FL. New development removed all big trees. No one wanted a hurricane to destroy their new home when a tree went down. We have very tall massive lobloly pines in our yard (100+ feet and 3’ diameter). I am certainly I favor of removing them. As much as i love big trees (they are a joy to my soul). I don’t like living under them during storms. They are a real threat. I don’t see it as paranoia just as I don’t think if you buckle your seat belt it is a sign of paranoia. Saturated ground, water soaked big trees, and high winds are a very real hazard. Isolated trees are an even bigger threat as they don’t have a forest around them to reduce their exposure to high winds. During hurricane Hugo many massive old growth Lobloly Pines went down in Congaree National Park.

This brings me back to too many people.
If there were fewer of us then there would be way fewer trees threatening us.
If trees figure this out they may start taking us out in greater numbers to save themselves.
Go Trees… Maybe they could be my friends.

@grayhawk
Yes too many people, and economic interest is all powerful. That’s why there is so little virgin forest left in this country, or vast herds of Bison roaming the plains.

I haven’t cut the trees in my yard yet because I really do like them, but I know it is a game of Russian Roulette! I have been too close to too many tornadoes, and in too many hurricanes to feel comfortable in the home we live in now during bad a storm. Keeping the trees is like living with a pet 20’ Pyhton. It doesn’t really care about you.

A short trip on I-85 is far more dangerous than any tree.

I don’t drive on 85.

My tree guys have been visiting me regular since Hurricane Matthew last October. If you don’t take the sick and rotted down they will come to visit the ground one day. If you don’t trim or thin out the suckers and extra limbs the wind won’t go “through” the tree and will push a tree, ie water oak, live oak, , over roots and all. Lightning kills trees. It hits pine trees and they die pretty soon. It hits oak trees and they rot around the lightning path and take a long time to die.

My neighbor cut most of his trees down around his house cause he was afraid of them falling on the house. During Matthew one of the other neighbor’s trees came down and poked a hole in the paranoid roof. His new metal roof does look spiffy though.

I generally live pretty peacefully with trees against the house. We have a mutual understanding…

Where I live here in the PNW, trees are everywhere, but you won’t find them in my yard. When I was much younger and inexperienced, I thought trees on the property would be a good thing, so we planted a few of them. That might have been a good thing if the trees had stayed about the same size. Around here, trees grow very fast and before long, some of them had to go. We got down to one tree that provided afternoon shade in the summer time. After a few years it became apparent that the tree was more trouble than it was worth and watching it sway and whip around in wind storms got to be more worrisome than it was worth. I should have gotten rid of it years before, or better yet–never planted it in the first place.

My rule of thumb is that every tree will eventually fall and if it can, it will fall on your house. Every year, there are dozens of houses, cars and people who get seriously damaged by falling trees in this area. Trees are great in their place, but not so much in your yard near your house.

My Pocono house sits in a grove of Beech trees, many over 100 feet tall. Mixed in are some other species. Beech trees put out suckers from the roots that proliferate! I have over a hundred trees on the property. I’ve reduced the number by cutting down most of the 6" in diameter and smaller. Have cut them into pieces and burned all the branches.

After having lived in the plains in Colorado, central Texas, and South Korea, where the tallest tree might be 20’ , I’ll keep mine.
Why else pay homeowners insurance?

I hate beech.

I hate beech trees too

and cause I hate beech I have a wood/dacron canoe with decks and thwarts made out of…
beech

Son of a Beech!

@string said:
Son of a Beech!

Hey, watch your language! This is suppose to be a family-friendly forum about paddling. Don’t believe me? Ask my bitch…