3 die offs

[Mr. Silly]

 

I lived through 3 die offs in my life.

The first was when I was in elementary school.  Elm trees were all through the neighborhood.  They were popular when the neighborhood was being built mostly because they had beautiful canopies and were fast growers.  Dutch Elm disease went through and wiped out most of the elms.  Our yard had 15 elm trees.  They were all in a row so I think we were the border between two farms some years earlier.  They all had to be taken down fortunately, we sold the house and moved about 5 years earlier.

After that, ash trees were ravaged by the Emerald Ash Borer beetle.  Ash trees were planted to replace elm trees.  They became pretty popular in our neighborhood.  The beetles destroyed them.  MLB had to switch the wood used for bats to maple because ash was so hard to find.

In front of our house was a blue spruce.  It had been losing needle and the lower branches were dying.  We called an arborist and he came out and said the tree was suffering from needle cast disease.  They could treat what was remaining but the tree would not regrow what had already been damaged.  We elected to have the tree removed since it would never be pretty again nor provide privacy.  Walking through the neighborhood, it looks like most blue spruce trees are suffering and struggling from needle cast.  They won't be around much longer.

So that makes three species of trees that died off in my lifetime.  It seems like an awful lot.

 

[Wilbur ★]

Sad.  I am sure the Silverdome is still going strong though.  

[maddmaxx ★]

I been around through three waves of Gypsy Moths.  They kill trees in general by eating all the leaves.

[TrentonMakes]

I can definitely identify with 2/3 of that story... the ash borer has decimated the trees in our neighborhood, including on our property, which is down to 3 ash, all apparently dead and we'll get them cut down this year.

Meanwhile the blue spruce out by the street seems to match your description, with lots of needle-less branches at the bottom, and patches above.  That tree looks funny because its trunk grew at a bit of an angle, seemingly to try to avoid the shade cast by a big pin oak which is now long gone (it was the first tree on the property that we had cut down, maybe a dozen years ago).  The photo is Google's from a few years back; the tree looks less healthy now)

[Mr. Silly]

11 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Sad.  I am sure the Silverdome is still going strong though.  

I haven't been up there in a while but I think it was purchased and torn down.

[Mr. Silly]

21 minutes ago, TrentonMakes said:

I can definitely identify with 2/3 of that story... the ash borer has decimated the trees in our neighborhood, including on our property, which is down to 3 ash, all apparently dead and we'll get them cut down this year.

Meanwhile the blue spruce out by the street seems to match your description, with lots of needle-less branches at the bottom, and patches above.  That tree looks funny because its trunk grew at a bit of an angle, seemingly to try to avoid the shade cast by a big pin oak which is now long gone (it was the first tree on the property that we had cut down, maybe a dozen years ago).  The photo is Google's from a few years back; the tree looks less healthy now)

This is one near our house (on the right).  It is looking kinda sorry.

[petitepedal ★]

We have needlecast at mu condo as well..and decided not to treat as well..since the trees we treated years ago look like crap.

[Mr. Silly]

21 minutes ago, petitepedal said:

We have needlecast at mu condo as well..and decided not to treat as well..since the trees we treated years ago look like crap.

I think the real solution is to just cut them down when you have the budget and replace them with something else.

[Razors Edge ★]

We had two huge elms in our front yard, and a blue spruce tucked a short distance away.  We lost the elms around 1981 to Dutch Elm Disease.   Our local girls soccer team was the Narberth Elms. The boys were the Narberth Neutrons (which I think are doing fine!).  I wonder if the blue spruce is still around? I'll look the next time I drive by.  Looking at google street view, it may be, but TALL.

[shootingstar]

It's always so sad, when alot of trees or big old tree(s) have to be removed. 

It's a huge deal in the prairies when many trees are removed here.  They take longer to grow in general. 160 trees had to be removed  by our river in 1 area, to improve flood protection, add hardscaping and river bank reinforcement.  But to me, the removal was quite extreme.  Now it's just too much sun when walking along on a fine spring /summer day.  I bike this route most of the time to get over its over-exposure to sun.

Calgary chopping down 160 trees on Eau Claire pathway | CBC News

Since living here, I've noticed alot trees look very dry in the bark ....very brittle looking.  The tree canopy is not as luxuriant.

[Further]

Town I grew up in was loaded with huge elms, beautiful trees. A couple hundred feet tall and a quarter acre of shade. Every one of them died. 

A few years later it was big deal to get the dead trees cut down, huge branches were falling randomly on roads and side walks.

So many of our native trees are dieing off, and the replacements aren't very appealing.

[shootingstar]

1 hour ago, Razors Edge said:

We had two huge elms in our front yard, and a blue spruce tucked a short distance away.  We lost the elms around 1981 to Dutch Elm Disease.   Our local girls soccer team was the Narberth Elms. The boys were the Narberth Neutrons (which I think are doing fine!).  I wonder if the blue spruce is still around? I'll look the next time I drive by.  Looking at google street view, it may be, but TALL.

Your area is more humid and gets alot more rain than our area.  Just by looking at this photos, the leafing is far more luxuriant than our area.   It's very rare, coniferous trees are that tall consistently in our  prairie area. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure our city plants alot of coniferous trees for replacements.