dawn red wood

[darkstar]

my customer has a dawn red wood 3 feet dbh .. awesome tree ,,, he wants to take it down because of the root s etc that are growing near his foundation and the pool ... the center of the tree is 17 feet from the pool and 25 feet from the house ... whAT he sees is the knubs of the roots and most appear near surface level ... this tree was planted around 1960 or befor and is perfect .... i want to persaude him to save this tree and also im figuring a solution to the encroching roots is to trench about 20 feet from drip line and bulid a root barier .... any thought s ??????? most of the knubs seem to be surface level only ... ps the OWNERS grand father planted this tree and it has been OBSERVED by the uni. of TN. utc and utk ...dark need help fast he may make us cut it tomorrow

 

[treeman82]

Do you have access to an air spade? If so, see if you can excavate a trench close to the foundation and the pool to show him what exactly is going towards them. Try pruning some of the roots and then installing a root barrier.

 

[Stumper]

Remind him that not only will he pay out the nos efor the removal you don't want to do but he will be decreasing his property value by thousands. Dig a trench and set a barrier and get on with life.

 

[timberbeast]

Darkstar,
Most trees have shallow roots, usually within the first 1.5 feet of the soil.

I concur with treeman82 to excavate and install a root barrier and with Stumper to convince the customer to the tree's value (both aesthetic and monetary).

Good Luck!

 

[darkstar]

just got the phone with him he was very understanding of the root situation but he says after the needls turn golden they make a mess of the pool area ... i assume that at this time the pool should be covered ... turns out his wifes father was an arborist who planted them ..possibly some of the first to reach the states ... now i can only come up with and apprasial value for the actual tree .. and here in chattanooga tennessee ugg maybe some figures could help the tree is abslolutly stunning and its far away enough from the pool / house not to pose a problem ... its gonna be hard to cut this one down ... one of my men mentioned possible worth of the tree was 5500 ....dark

 

[TREETX]

I would try and sell them OUT of it. Dawn Redwood was not discovered until 1948 so this must truly be a specimen.

 

[treeseer]

hope you aren't cutting it as I type. Metasequoia rates up to 100% species rating in TN. you could sell root pruning and growth regulator to ally the owner's arborphobia paranoia.

 

[Carl A]

http://tennessee.gov/agriculture/forestry/champions/champions.pdf

The TN state champion lists the largest dawn redwood in the state as 106" circumference @4.5 feet(about 34" in dbh), 82 feet tall, and 52 feet in circumference. It stands in the Ellington Ag center where the ITCC will be in another few weeks.

Does the owner really want to cut down a possible champion? The nomination form is here:

http://tennessee.gov/agriculture/forestry/champions/nominate.pdf

Darkstar, contact me directly if you need any assistance with measuring, submitting the form and convincing the owner to reconsider.

Carl

 

[treeseer]

Carl A. 52 feet in circumference.

Thanks for making the links and the info Carl, hope it was in time. btw, I think you mean 52' avg crown spread, unless this champ is really humongous.

 

[Carl A]

Treeseer,

Thanks for the correction. It is big but not that big.

 

[arboromega]

save the tree brother. save the tree.

 

[darkstar]

the tree has been saved for now ........ i showed him the dates the dawn redwood had been discovered and etc... .... ill try and post a photo of thes tree ... he has 3 of them but the bigiie is un real ..... dark

 

[darkstar]

i got some photos how do i shrink them them to post ?

 

[darkstar]

ok i think i shrunk it a bit to much

 

[RedlineIt]

darkstar,

Sure sounds like you have spent a good deal of time and effort courting this customer, digging up his real objections to owning this tree (the swimming pool!), convincing him it is in his best interest to keep it, even if you need to tweak his guilt levers a wee bit.

Kudos to you!

And kudos to the suggestions from the db members here to assist darkstar. Great stuff.

My take, FWIW:

The very day he is out sitting poolside, the needles are darkening and a breeze blows a swirl of them past his feet, he's going to look up at that tree in annoyance. He has money tied up in his pool, but some ego as well. The pool represents not just a pleasant diversion but a statement of accomplishment, a demonstration of success. The tree is besmirching this subset of his ego.

(I'm no different from him. I have a motorcycle I did not want to park in an employers gravel lot set aside for employee parking because the dust and fine gravel might dim my fabulous chrome and carbon fibre bits. Yes it would take me time and a tiny amount of money to keep it clean of all that, but it was my ego that made me think I alone need not park with the other employees.)

You mentioned that this tree has been observed by local universities and colleges.

Perhaps it would be pleasing to this customer to see this type of interest in his property again. A group of people coming to view and study HIS tree!

Invest his ego in this possession, he may never look at it the same again.

Sorry if I've gone in too deep,



RedlineIt

 

[treeseer]

dark you may not have a champion but you do have a contenda who may rise to champ someday. Filling out the form and measuring it and nominating it may be a boost to the ego as redline describes. You can do it all with a tape measure since you can climb; no guesswork with a clinometer needed.

Can you sell an hour or two's work for an "aerial inspection" and light crown cleaning? If so that would cover your measuring time too, which he should be willing to pay for anyway. My Metasequoia sheds its needles in a fairly brief time period; not too much hassle to cover the pool during this time. The needles should ALL go back under the tree, to nourish the future champ.

 

[darkstar]

you guys are awesome i have a much better pic .looking up the dawn redwood but im shrinking them to much so whn compressing the pic ......when i go to file then/ save/ and the /more /... i can pick out a setting from one to twenty i picked 2 ill try 7 ... any suggestions ? id like to send you all the picture of the huge 23 foot in circumference willow oak we saved last year ... my cell bill was over 500 .. it involved a lot of effort but .it was worth it and urban forestry council gave us the 2004 award for private sector ... [[ whoa]] never expected that and a once in a life time thing .... the current lot where the dawn redwood is has an actual real red wood very scraggly supposedly nurtured by the arborist grandfather for 40 years i have a pic of it ... the tree is having a hard time surviving in tennessee ... i cant identify some of the trees this man planted ... wish i could talk to him now ... but he died some time back ..... ill try for the other pic .... thanx for your support dark

 

[darkstar]

Well Lets See second photo ive ever posted anywhere ... computer skills lacking

 

[darkstar]

and this is ths supposed actual red wood 40 years old at least ..notice the guy wires ....

 

[R Schra]

history Dawn redwood

quoted-->

The chance discovery of the Dawn Redwood was one of the most exciting events in the plant world of the last century and the story of its resurrection and introduction is quite amazing. In early winter 1941, T Kan, a forester from the National Central University stumbled upon a strange new tree growing in a tiny village in Szechuan, China. Over the next five years, specimens were ‘lost in the post’ or proved inconclusive and China was torn by war, making expeditions impossible.

However, Professor Cheng of the National Central University, Beijing, was determined to establish the strange tree’s identity, and finally sent an expedition to the remote Szechuan village in 1946 to collect a complete suite of specimens. After consultation with China’s leading tree experts, the Dawn Redwood was proclaimed to belong to the genus Metasequoia, hitherto only known from fossil evidence dating back 100 million years, and thought to have been extinct for 5 million years.

Seed of the ‘new’ tree was collected on the second expedition, in 1947, which was sponsored by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University in Boston, USA. The first consignment reached the Arnold Arboretum in January 1948 and was distributed amongst botanic gardens worldwide for cultivation. However, the seed from which the specimen at Cambridge University Botanic Garden was grown came directly from a Dr Silow who worked with the British Council in Beijing. This head start allowed Cambridge University Botanic Garden to be the first to plant out a Dawn Redwood on British soil.

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When looking at that pic you send i have some thoughts about those strong upgrowing limbs. I usually see that at Bald cypress. Maybe a pic of the 'leaves'/ 'needles' can tell for sure?