Tree butchery

Moira,

Kiwis are no worse than Americans.  I drive around the SF Bay Area sadly
noting the wholesale deformation of all kinds of trees.  In some
neighborhoods that haven't undergrounded their utility (power, phone, cable
tv) lines, the power company has come through and created big vee-shaped
holes in the middle of street trees to keep them out of the power lines.
There is a Chinese elm down the street that will probably just split in half
this year because the majority of the tree is hanging out over the street
and not over the trunk.  Palm trees are beheaded.  It's horrendous.

Our MG group is thinking of having an 'Ugly Tree' contest this winter so we
can post photos of what not to do on our website. 

Cheers,
Bracey
San Jose CA


(snip)

As a nation, Kiwis are real bad, where trees are concerned, at planting
species too big for the property and then not even merely topping them to
fit, but mutilating them further by wholesale cutting back of large limbs,
with no attempt to leave a side branch at the tip -just a hideous stump-.
This often seems to he done without rhyme or reason almost as though they
either hate or fear the tree and all too often leads to the entry of
diseases. In the course of pruning professionally I have several times been
approached to perform such drastic surgery, but when questioned, the owners
almost always admitted the tree was not actually causing any problem of
shading or suchlike. The owner of one garden said vaguely she thought all
trees needed to  be cut from time to time! (the victim I saved in this case
was a handsome and not overwhelming Liquidamber well away from the house and
the neighbours. Fifteen years later I am pleased to note it is still
standing unharmed..
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index