17 February 2009

Tree Down

Some friends of ours in Westwood had a 100 year old oak in their front yard that fell last week during the strong winds. Thankfully no people or houses were smashed. The kids had lots of fun climbing on it. It was a massive, 80' tree:
 


 


 

3 comments:

Unknown said...

That's impressive. The droughts of the past years have silently and quietly done their damage. Hate to see those old sentinels go down.

DP said...

I also think that many of them are reaching their typical life span. We were told (after a 50 ft branch dropped out of ours) that pin oaks have a life expectancy of about 80 years (about the age of our neighborhood, which is full of pin oaks). Unfortunately I have a feeling that we're going to see a wave of falling trees in neighborhoods of a certain age.

It doesn't help that keeping large trees healthy (i.e. having them trimmed periodically by an arborist) is pretty expensive. Neglect + age + drought = "Timber!"

k said...

that's across from our house! it fell just as i was getting ready to leave for a job interview out of town...i tried not to take it as foreshadowing...