The Tragedy of our Sycamore

Our area is in a weather pattern that brings gusty winds and thunderstorms every afternoon - and it is taking a toll on our trees. There is a large branch that has been torn from the upper part of the tulip polar at the edge of the forest. It hasn’t fallen all the way to the ground yet but seems to get lower with each storm.  I won’t be venturing underneath until it falls all the way. It  is most likely to land in the forest rather than our yard.

The sycamore is a larger problem. The tree is not that old. It came up in a garden plot and I decided to let it grow. It has two trunks and had done very well until recently. Its branches would be whipped around by the wind but it would always straight up afterwards. Now one of the trunks does not straighten up and the branches are starting to sweep the stairs to our deck. A few weeks ago I noticed a wound in the trunk and I suspected that it had happened from the bending during storms....and had reduced the tree's resilence.

But when I inspected the tree more closely, I discovered that the bending is further up the trunk (the trunk to the left in the picture below; the tree may just be top heavy with its big leaves.

I'll try trimming the branches above the bend. I do not want to cut it down! I liked where the tree is growing because it provides summer shade for a basement window and the dining room on the first floor…..and in a few years it would have shaded the top floor of the house. 

Tree Trimming

A recent rain weighed down the plum tree branches enough to convince me it was time to trim the tree. I got out a step stool, the saw, and the long handled pruners. I cut off low branches and ones that were growing more horizontal that vertical. Afterwards I took a closer look at the layers within the branches - the delicate color changes from the bark to the sapwood (cambium, xylem), and then the heartwood.

Next up on my ‘to trim’ list was the oak. Oaks do a lot of self-pruning so the main work I do on the treat the edge of our yard near the street is focused on the lower branches when they grow low enough to brush the tops of vehicles in the street or our car as we pull into the driveway. It was harder work than the plum tree; the branches were larger and a bit higher too. There were many tiny acorns on the branches.

I also found an oak marble - almost a ‘glow in the dark’ green.

I cut open the shell and found the insect larvae suspended inside the sphere.

The branches were quite lot and I wove them into the brush ‘fence’ around my chaos garden….more about that in another post.