Time’s come to replace felled tree
I may finally have a spot to plant sweet corn. One of the elements that crowned the flora in our backyard was a large mulberry tree. Judging from its girth and height, I guessed that it predated by many years our home and maybe some others nearby.
Each fall, its leaves were the last to turn color and fall to the ground. The quantity of debris it scattered would normally fill about six to eight large garbage bags. It was the only real tree we had at our home, the other greenery being more ornamental, small and shrub-like.
When my lovely wife recently told me that one of its limbs had broken, I wasn’t too upset, since it’s normal for trees of that size to lose a limb now and again.
But when we went to inspect it, what we found was more than just a broken branch. Zigzagging up the trunk of this majestic growth was a crack, maybe an inch or two wide. Walking around the tree, we saw a similar split, looking like a lightning bolt, on the opposite side.
That evening, I called a tree service we have used before to remove a much smaller, although dead, tree from the yard. My wife called again the following day while I was at work, explaining that we believed we had a very serious and immediate problem on our hands.
The service owner came to look at the tree that evening and agreed.
Pleadingly, I asked if there was any way some of the tree could be saved. It has provided shade, privacy and, when it was healthy, probably some protection from weather coming from the southeast. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like without it.
He explained the tree was likely a victim of our extraordinarily hot summers. The sap, he said, would go to the bottom of the tree allowing the upper sections to dry out and split. He also said the tree had formed from two or three single trees that grew together over the decades. His estimate of its age was about 70 years or more.
He told me he didn’t know if the tree would still be standing come morning.
If it had fallen, it would certainly have damaged our home and our neighbors’ properties. The day after he gave me his prognosis, he returned with his equipment and crew and began removing it.
It took most of two and a half days for them to cut it down, a chore I didn’t envy them since they worked on a couple of those 90-plus degree days we had last week. He had to bring in a machine with a bucket to reach the uppermost branches and a chipper to dispose of the limbs. The whole tree had to come down.
I noticed as soon as I pulled into the driveway when the task was done that there was a lot more sky showing behind our house.
Depressed at the loss, I looked at that area wondering what to do. My wife, ever the optimist, said I’d have to decide what I wanted to do with that corner of the yard, that maybe I could plant something there.
Well, I’ve wanted to plant sweet corn for years but never had a large enough or sunny enough spot to do so. The area the tree occupied might be the answer to that quest.
It gets full sun now and is large enough to plant a small, but adequate patch of corn. It’s too late to sow this year, although I’m tempted to put a few seeds into the ground.
Hey, we are all familiar with the phrase when life hands you lemons, make lemonade, right?
Well, when life deprives you of a mulberry tree, plant corn.
Think that’s a proverb that will catch on? Don’t answer that.
Have a good day.
James Pletcher Jr. is Herald-Standard business editor. He can be reached at 724-439-7571 or by e-mail at jpletcher@heraldstandard.com
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