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Friday, January 05, 2007

DId you hear something????


Split tree 1
Originally uploaded by dewelch.
I missed the fall of this large tree just 2 houses away this morning, but I can imagine it made quite a sound. As you can see from this photo and the next one, one entire 50+ trunk peeled away and blocked our street for a few hours. If you click for the large version of the picture it looks like water had infiltrated into the crotch of the 2 trunks (and had been doing so for a while).

We had a major wind storm last week and additional high winds today. That, combined with the damage must have finally twisted the trunks enough that they came apart. I haven't seen anyone come out yet, besides the city crew that cleared the street, but the reminder of this trunk needs to be brought down as soon as possible or it is likely to take out a large section of this home.

In my 20+ years of living in Los Angeles, I have never seen so much wind damage. Last week, there were trees completely toppled nearly everywhere you locked. Hundreds, if not thousands of branches were scattered everywhere, not counting the mounds of palm fronds that typical get shed whenever big winds come along.

Through it all, though, you can usually see the evidence of neglect or inattention on the damaged trees -- waterlogged soil that gives no purchase to the tree roots, badly pruned trees which are lop-sided and likely to tumble, huge elm trees which have no center left in their trunks, just open gaping sections of rot.

The pity is, we don't often think about our trees until one decides to finally move from its pre-assigned spot in the garden.

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