Monday, October 6, 2014
Maple tree pruning
The old maple on the corner of the property has seen better days and chances are it is not long for this world. But it does shield the house from the summer sun so I'd like to keep it there as long as possible.
Before we bought the house ten years ago to the day, it had not been maintained and
had grown a bit wild. When the town repaved the street five years back,
they put in new storm drains and they carelessly cut a large hole for a catch basin
quite close to the tree and damaged a large amount of roots. The second year
we were here, we had a big wind storm and lost two large branches that
arched across the front of the house towards the other maple by the
driveway and framed the house nicely. Ever since it has been a matter of
slowly cutting back the long branches in the hopes it will develop some
more new growth closer in. The last time it was pruned about 3 years
ago Central Maine Power company did a bit of a hack job on it. So I figured best
do some preventive pruning myself and clear the long branches away from
the cables again, so that in the event of an ice storm this winter it will be
less likely to take the cables down. Now before you go screaming NUTS,
The lower cables are telephone and cable TV. The very top one is the actual 1800 volt electric cable and I
stayed well away from that one.
Here you can see the large swath I cleared that allows a clear path for the cables. If you enlarge the photo you can also see where a third large limb broke of a couple years ago. I'd like to trim the top branches on the right a bit but don't have the means, nor am I brave enough to climb that high. All the cutting I did was what I could reach from the top of the ladder.
As usual it turned in to a bigger job than I had expected.
And in addition to a bit of a wrenched back, I made myself a large pile of brush I need to dispose of now. From this side you can see where the two larger limbs broke off.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Keeping on top of trees is always a trouble. I'm lucky my brother is a tree surgeon so any climbing work I get him to do!
ReplyDeleteSend him my way, I could use him. Though at this point there is not much that can be done to save this one. I fear it has been compromised once too often.
DeleteI pay a lot of money to cut the trees near my house. you are lucky. You live in a beautiful area.
ReplyDeleteYes Yael, right now its not so bad. But we are headed for 7 months of brutal Siberian weather. Soon we will have 30 to 50 cm of snowfall per week and average temps of 15 degrees C below zero.
DeleteI have a hundred plus year old oak growing at a tangent across my trail up the mountain. About a year ago, the propane company got new trucks and they couldn't get under it. They told me to cut the tree. I told them that nobody tells me to do any damn thing, I don't work for anybody and I don't owe anybody money. I fired them and got a propane company with smaller trucks. I love my trees.
ReplyDeleteHarry: When they rebuilt our street five years ago we came close to loosing both trees if the town took the full 50 foot right of way and widened the road. They wanted to alleviate the traffic on the main intersection in town and sought to change our road from a residential 25 mph to a 40 mph "feeder-collector". And I'd have had a McDonalds drive through at my front door. A few of us neighbors got together and successfully argued at town meeting to keep the road the same 25 foot width it originally was and I kept my trees. Apparently my neighbor across the street and one lot over, favored the wider road and the non residential classification as it then allowed him less than the 200 ft road frontage required to subdivide his 175 foot wide 7 acre lot. He's had it in for me and my trees ever since. The old slob and his aberrant behavior has been a source of much grief for all of us. I am hell bent to keep that big maple going and not give parasite the pleasure of seeing it come down till after he kicks the bucket.
ReplyDelete