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Rant: I’m no huge tree hugger, but this is a crime.

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8K views 110 replies 45 participants last post by  LilCutts 
#1 · (Edited)
I am so crazed by people who value concrete over old trees.

Our latest condo board is awful, autocratic, dismissive and uncommunicative, which has often happened where i live. Folks seem to get on the board because they love the power they think should come with the position of serving. (I've been on it myself but could only stand it for four years.)

Anyway.... how would you feel if you got only 12 hours notice that the big giant 75 year old tree (as i was told by the so-called arborist hired to cut down the tree) outside of your front porch was being cut down? (It's confirmed that it's a perfectly healthy tree and you can tell from the parts cut.) This tree has shaded the front of our house beautifully and has kept it very nice and cool and was a great view from our window.

And aside from that, no one thought it important to let us know that this was happening right outside our door. The chainsaws are bad enough but the chipper is about four feet from our patio.

Here is the tree Day 1 before they got started:
And then today, Day 6 of their work: Thank god we have air conditioning.
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I was told me the roots were getting into the swimming pool but there is no real evidence presented about that nor any lifting of the exposed aggregate pool patio. I think the REAL reason is the woman who is the condo board president for many years swims every morning. And the tree shaded the whole pool during that time she swam. She had also complained about the mess it leaves when it's windy. I've been on the volunteer pool committee for 15 years and it is messy but that is not why you take down a tree.

I am also interested if anyone knows. I think this is a Western Redcedar. Does anyone know?
 
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#2 ·
As I have often been told, if you sign up for condo life you get condo life. Having dealt with the same mindset in an upscale golf community I learned my lesson once and won't again.
 
#22 · (Edited)
@herkileez ... Thank you .. I did a lot of research online and came up with that also.
Can I ask you one more question? They could have put up a root barrier right? The aggregate is not buckling in any way that makes it hazardous for walking. The tiles kept popping off on one side and it got patched and they told me the roots could be seen from that area. They also told me the pool was leaking three inches overnight. So i took a photo with my good camera where the 4 foot depth mark line was to show it barely dropped even 1/4 inch. That was my first suspicion.
The tree was perfectly healthy.
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#10 ·
That is a shame, and I can assume you have no say I replanting a tree there?

I went for a hike today through a spot I have enjoyed for 15 years, only to see it was clearcut earlier this Summer. Part of the bummer of living in the Northwest.

One a sidenote: Having had friends live in "condohoods" where the monthly fees get higher, the privacy and tree and shrub trimming is helter-skelter to murderous, I could not handle not controlling my front yard.

I'll plant you guys a Cedar here, it will look good in 50 years
 
#24 · (Edited)
That is a shame, and I can assume you have no say I replanting a tree there?

I'll plant you guys a Cedar here, it will look good in 50 years
Thank you @Gyrfalcon2015 ! I do have a say because the Maintenance guy likes me. i'm Thinking Japanese maple. I know nothing will grow in the rest of my lifetime to provide the shade and sound barrier, but it would be nice to have some nice color. And we are looking at extending the laurel type bush around the fence. If anyone has ideas, let me know! I'm no arborist, but then i don't think the guy the hired is one either, they just told me he was.

Edited to add: @SawyerJones , I can't believe it's taken this long either!

They started this tree Aug. 18 but have so far worked 6 of those days. They still need to grind out the stump. So by the time this is done, it will be 8 days to take this down. The owner of the company (who is actually a nice guy and apologized for having to cut it down) told me he is being paid $3500 to take it down. So i think he must be not making all that much money on it.

What was also stupid was they could have waited until the pool closed on Sept. 15 so as not to disrupt the last of the season. The owner of the company said he could have scheduled after the 15th too. So it's inexplicable how this board operates.

RE: REVENGE: I love y'all's suggestions about the board president and birds crapping on her car but she keeps in the garage. HOWEVER, i came up with a great idea. My patio has external speakers and is only a few feet from the pool. When the board president comes for her morning swim (in the sunshine now) i am going to blast hip hop from my Pandora account and dare her to knock on my door to tell me to turn it down.

I did also organize this. Six out of the 9 of us on the pool committee are resigning from the committee en masse.
 
#14 ·
I am so crazed by people who value concrete over old trees.

Our latest condo board is awful, autocratic, dismissive and uncommunicative, which has often happened where i live. Folks seem to get on the board because they love the power they think should come with the position of serving. (I've been on it myself but could only stand it for four years.)

Anyway.... how would you feel if you got only 12 hours notice that the big giant 75 year old tree (as i was told by the so-called arborist hired to cut down the tree) outside of your front porch was being cut down? (It's confirmed that it's a perfectly healthy tree and you can tell from the parts cut.) This tree has shaded the front of our house beautifully and has kept it very nice and cool and was a great view from our window.

And aside from that, no one thought it important to let us know that this was happening right outside our door. The chainsaws are bad enough but the chipper is about four feet from our patio.

Here is the tree Day 1 before they got started:
And then today, Day 6 of their work: Thank god we have air conditioning. View attachment 210307 View attachment 210308

I was told me the roots were getting into the swimming pool but there is no real evidence presented about that nor any lifting of the exposed aggregate pool patio. I think the REAL reason is the woman who is the condo board president for many years swims every morning. And the tree shaded the whole pool during that time she swam. She had also complained about the mess it leaves when it's windy. I've been on the volunteer pool committee for 15 years and it is messy but that is not why you take down a tree.

I am also interested if anyone knows. I think this is a Western Redcedar. Does anyone know?
We put in the bylaws a maximum expense without a vote of 1000 bucks.
 
#16 ·
I'm confident it was an incense cedar, closely related to red cedar but is an ornamental, not naturally occurring in WA wild landscapes. There foliage and bark is very similar, yet very different from a true western red cedar. I work in the forestry field - just wanted to qualify that, I'm not just spewing bullshit.

The thing I cant believe is that it took the crew 6 fucking days to take that one tree down. must be more property at risk out of the view of the photo's, even still, 6 days is insane. 6 days is like taking down a gigantic cotton wood between two houses surrounded by cars and landscape plantings.

The pavement to tree ratio in any city is a big bummer. I like to try and imagine what the forest looked like around lake Washington before settlers got to it. Massive, huge old growth fir and cedar forest, filled with bears, deer, cougars and lots of robust streams filled with salmon and trout.
 
#18 ·
Part of my work involves HOAs. Although lucrative, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Power-hungry douchebags typically are the decision-makers. Not a kiss ass and I will speak the truth, typically it doesn’t go well.

That’s too bad JoJo. It would also be too bad crushed croutons were being spilled around her car. Dried bird shit is sometimes hard to clean.
 
#20 ·
When we were looking for a new home I had three main criteria; dead end road, no HOA, and at least one perfect tree. The home we bought is at the end of a private road, has over a dozen trees (at least one is perfect) and nothing close to an HOA. The four properties on the road are responsible for road maintenance which is somewhat an issue to get all to agree and we are all friends.
 
#25 ·
In October my wife is taking possession of keys to a small apartment in Nagoya, Japan. We plan on spending up to four months a year there with one of the time periods during prime growing season. Our yard and garden is busy, requires lots of attention. Attention that we weren't able to provide because of being gone for almost all of June and part of July. We've been working hard since the second week of July to get caught up. Hence the thinking maybe a condo is a option worth exploring for the eight or so months a year we're home (wherever home might be). This thread has certainly opened my eyes about "condo" living.

Again, Jojo, sorry for this horrible change to your home. How incredibly frustrating. Buy lots of croutons.
 
#26 ·
Thank you @Buzzy. I don't want to put off condo living for everyone. Let me add some nice things about living in our condo community. I bought this place in 1992 and over the years saved enough remodeled in part where it's now really nice.

We have some very good friends here, many of them single. The folks quitting the pool committee with me have been friends for a while now and we often have a gathering together to have wine or just meet at the pool. No one ever just knocks on doors unannounced so you don't lose privacy that way.

When i walk to the bank of locking mailboxes i almost ALWAYS have some nice conversation with someone on the way over and back. So there is always a connection to the outside world if you are open to it. As we get older in years, i think this will be very important.

There are two older bachelor guys who i will often bring over a dish because i heard they eat frozen dinners. I have two neighbors who always looks out for our house when we are gone and they have the code to our garage. A new neighbor moved in and tripped and broke her hip and three of us, not knowing we had each done this, offered to walk her dog and to go to the grocery store.

Our community has a lot of units and i say in a crowd you can always hide. We could move, but then what if i get a next door neighbor who is horrible and has a terrible yard or a bunch of broken down cars in front or a continuous barking dog? There is not much you can do about it and a couple of bad neighbors is not easy to ignore. In a condo you can because here we have more friends here than those we can't stand.

The other day one of the older ladies who i just know from walking around and seeing her at the pool came over and gave me a hug and said she was sorry about the tree and that she has always admired my spunk and passion and for standing up. That meant a lot to me.
 
#33 ·
Our community has a lot of units and i say in a crowd you can always hide. We could move, but then what if i get a next door neighbor who is horrible and has a terrible yard or a bunch of broken down cars in front or a continuous barking dog? There is not much you can do about it and a couple of bad neighbors is not easy to ignore. In a condo you can because here we have more friends here than those we can't stand.
What ever you do don't move to the hills above Sedro Woolley. Most of what you described are required to live up here. Also, owning any number of guns and shooting them from dawn to dusk.
 
#29 ·
Hahahahahaha! Brilliant @Gyrfalcon2015 ! Not my kind of music but i can stream this loudly and then go for an hour walk, which is about how long she stays over there.

Also @rawalker i found an hour long YouTube of those Gyoto Monks throat singing. That is hysterical!

These are great ideas! She is not over there today dammit but next sunny day i'm Sure she will be.

Plant Grass Tree Road surface Evergreen

In reading online i do think it's a western red cedar which i understand an arborvitae is a version of a younger one. I measured the circumference of the stump about three feet from the ground and it's 140 inches around. I wanted to find out what that might mean in years. Just curious.

Had i known ahead of time i would have done all this research and gotten my own bids on digging up concrete from pool to put in a root barrier that stunts their growth. HOWEVER, i don't believe that roots were a problem. I think that is a lie, but i still would have looked into it. They didn't tell us on purpose i believe.
 
#52 ·
View attachment 210351
In reading online i do think it's a western red cedar which i understand an arborvitae is a version of a younger one. I measured the circumference of the stump about three feet from the ground and it's 140 inches around. I wanted to find out what that might mean in years. Just curious.
Based on the foliage picture above I concur on the Western Red Cedar ID. However, to be sure of that and that it's not Leyland Cypress or Incense Cedar, look on the underside of the fronds. WRC will have white markings on the bracts while Leland Cypress and Incense Cedar will not. BTW bark appearance and juvenile growth form are among the least reliable characteristics to use for most tree ID's.
Although WRC sometimes goes by the common name of Giant Arborvitae, the Arborvitae commonly used for decorative planting and visual barriers is a different specie -WRC = Thuja plicata, Arborvitae = Thuja occidentalis. Incense Cedar is an entierly different genus -Calcocedrus decurrens.
Your tree looks to have been less than 35 yrs old. Diameter and age are only loosely coorelated. It is not uncommon for two trees of the same species near each other both in age and location to have 1000% difference in diameter, e.g 6" Dia. tree under a 60"dia. tree both about 150yrs. old. Herecleze gave good instructions on how you can determine the age of this tree. To get even closer - count the growth rings add two years for initial seedling growth and 1 year for every foot of stump height. Or simply find out when the house was built since the tree was probably planted as a 3yr old seedling then.
 
#34 ·
Hahahahahaha.... LOVE This torture music! THAT is horrible! I would definitely have to leave the house to play that!

I actually like some hip hop music and could listen to it and i know she would hate hate hate it!

@herkileez, The ground on our side of that tree is always kind of wet too and in fact our front area is landscaped with topsoil and beauty bark, no sod. They took out a maple in front of our place in 1993 (without notice) because it lifted the sidewalk slightly. Since that time there is no more lifting and neither is the exposed aggregate on the pool patio side lifted anywhere that i can see.

I would have to measure, but the tree is positioned about 15 feet from the shallow end of the pool.
 
#36 ·
It's not like there is a shortage of trees. I can understand appreciating and become somewhat attached to one, but like others have said, unless you buy land and don't have an HOA, you just have to deal with that kind of thing. Clear cuts and forest fires look ugly at first, but they increase the biodiversity and quickly become prime habitat for many forest animals. People like to cry about a clear cut or forest fire and how terrible they look, but that is short sighted - it is just part of the cycle of life. Like beavers creating a meadow where a forest used to stand - change isn't bad.
 
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