Our neighbors had a banyan tree in the yard when I was a kid. They are great trees to climb in.
I got to climb on the Angel Oak near Charleston . My in laws had a magnificent one in near them where I ran into my first saddleback caterpillars.
@string
Never heard of saddleback caterpillars. Looked them up - that’s a scary looking creepy crawly!
Since early June we’ve been fighting a battle with forest tent caterpillars. Disgusting tree leaf defoilators. Can hear them chewing and their falling feces sounds like rain (and stains whatever it lands on). Soapy water kills them but using a hose end sprayer on my decks and walls of my house for a couple hours a day after work sure cut into paddling time. The end is in sight though…
And they will light you up.
Prescribed burns are part of our nature preserve management here in IL for both forest/woodlands and prairie. It’s meant mostly open up the understory and manage the invasives to make room for the natives. The larger, live trees are rarely damaged significantly.
I don’t have any recollection of large, forest fires in IL, but there may have been some.
What has been well documented, is that the species range and variety in IL forests has changed dramatically from when the first European explorers documented their travels in IL.
Based on what happened in NC, prescribed burns are a necessity if you aren’t going yo let nature do it for you.
I admit to some storm anxiety in my childhood bedroom that was 10’ from the trunk from a 14’ circumference burr oak tree with branches that reached out over my room and beyond. I had images in my mind of one of those branches breaking off in a storm and skewering me in my bed. Thankfully, dad always kept the dead and damaged branches trimmed out. That tree is a remnant of the original Big Grove that welcomed the original settlers in Urbana, IL. That tree and two others of similar stature still reside on that property.
On my property in southwestern IN, a 93’ tall silver maple fell and damaged my shed, which prompted me to examine the surrounding trees and I identified another of similar height that had a split in the trunk and had a slight lean toward the house and appeared to be tall enough to reach the house, if it fell that direction, and would crush my garage and several canoes and kayaks, if it fell that way, so I made the hard decision to have it cut down as a preventative measure.
Last spring , branches started falling off of the dead trunk of a large oak tree, which has another trunk leaning away from the house, so I had it cut short enough so that it couldn’t split off from the other trunk, which would damage the remaining trunk and crush the house.
In both cases when I had the trees cut down, I left them where they fell at the edge of the woods, so that the nutrients could return to the woods floor and I could watch the transition.
I hate to cut down trees, but I couldn’t risk the damage that would have resulted from those damaged and dead trees falling on the house or garage.
So, I have experienced some tree paranoia.
I still have a large oak tree reaching out over part of my house, but it appears to be healthy, so it will remain uncut, for now.
Well if we are talking trees we might as well take a look at the largest live oak in Florida. The photo does not do it justice.
Looks like a good climbing tree.
That is an abomination! Cut it down and build a strip mall.
Spanish bayonets.
Why fall upon cross’words?
Columns, lines, root Groot’s sublime.
What’s our tree of life lean towards?
I had a huge, double trunk oak tree that was right outside my bedroom window, about 10 feet away. Double trunk trees are supposedly more likely to fall. When big storms hit or were in the forecast I would abandon the bedroom and sleep downstairs. My ex-wife didn’t seem to care much and said “if it is my time, then the tree will fall on me” and slept in the bedroom even through hurricanes . I figured I’d give myself some more time and moved downstairs during storms.
We noticed dying branches on the tree and called in an arborist. He explained that every tree near a house is a “threat” but some are “dangers” and he classified our tree as a “danger”. He explained that the tree probably could be saved by cabling the two trunks togeher (they had been, but the cable had snapped), trimming it and keeping an eye on it. He could bring in someone who would trim it of the dead branches and recable it and it would run about a thousand dollars and needed to be tended to every few years at about $500 a pop, but it still would be a "danger. Or we could cut it down. Cutting it down was an expensive propisition because a crane was needed. We got a few quotes ranging from 2k to 5k to take the monster down. Of course we chose the cheapest.
When it was taken down, it turned out to be 175 years old, by counting the rings. I hated to take that old guy down. I love old trees, but I preferred the idea of sleeping in my bed when a storm hit, without thinking about that tree.
When I camp and I’m selecting a campsite one of the first things I look at is the trees. Is there a “leaner” and if it is a leaner does it lean toward my tent? Are there dead branches overhead? I’ve been known to decide against perfectly nice campsites because I didn’t like the look of the trees around it.
“…Are there dead branches overhead? …”. Widow makers.
During one windstorm we ended up with our neighbor’s blue spruce uprooted and thrown into our front yard plus a big healthy pine snapped off about 15 feet from ground level after being bent horizontally. Twice we’ve had smaller pines knocked down and bending our bird feeder hanger (1/2 inch steel rod) into a pretzel about 10 feet from the couch where the dog sleeps (twice!) so now she goes into the basement during high winds. And we had a deck destroyed by downfall. But as far as “nothing worse” I think your recent experience on Jocassee would upset me more because at least I have some control over our tree situation.
I love Live Oaks! Really great trees, that once were used to make ship keels. Many of the coastal giants were cut before steel replaced ships hulls. It is a very hard dense wood. On a hunting lease in central FL owned by Container Corp when they cut the pines they then poisoned all the big ancient Live Oaks so they wouldn’t shade the new pine plantings. I considered that a criminal act even if legally as the land owner they had the right. These trees were no danger to anyone. But they did cut into their profit margin.
@castoff said:
…On a hunting lease in central FL owned by Container Corp when they cut the pines they then poisoned all the big ancient Live Oaks so they wouldn’t shade the new pine plantings. I considered that a criminal act even if legally as the land owner they had the right. These trees were no danger to anyone. But they did cut into their profit margin.
Tree farms are just “corn fields” that don’t get harvested for 25 years.
Here in N. California, especially on our North Coast, we love our BIG redwood trees. I’m in Sacramento and thankfully we have a very high number of trees from pine, fir, redwood, to oak, to giant sycamore, eucalyptus, many more. They help keep us cool in the summer. We are rated with the highest number of trees in the US, and 3rd in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Trees
Jimx200, I thought you lived in KY or TN?