to kill, or not to kill

[winchman]

my wife and i bought our house less than a year ago, and i have been thinking about a problem since, that maybe i can get some help from everyone on here from.
i have a tree in my front yard. a Norway spruce, to be sure, 22" dbh. the tree is in the cable and telephone wires. when i originally looked at the tree, i figured i would simply climb the tree and get the droopy limbs off of and out of the wires. no problem there. but then i remembered the ditch witch that dug only five feet off the trunk on my neighbor's side, and started thinking about removal. there are three pix here, the third shows me looking from my house at the tree, where you can see the problematic wires. the second shows the view from the street, the cut next to the neighbor's driveway, and our house in the background. the first shows the damage to the roots that were in the ditching zone.
i'm not generally paranoid about trees tipping over. i'm a certified arborist and am constantly evaluating trees for hazardous conditions at my job. however, now that there is a tree next to my house, with the roots removed on the side away from my house, i find myself leaning towards removal and replanting with a more desirable (subjective) species. any sort of opinion, or help is appreciated. now to attach those pix....

http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s195/hamman9/

there is the link. apparently, arboristsite doesn't like my file formats or something, because they wouldn't upload. no biggie, check them out there on photobucket. let me know if you have problems seeing the pix. thanks for reading this long-winded thing!

 

[winchman]

more details

i forgot to mention a couple of things.
the tree has no lean at all. straight up.
we don't get too much strong wind in asheville, but we did have those 2 hurricanes 2 and a half years ago with 100 mile plus wind.
the construction damage was inflicted about 6 months ago, and i don't know the previous history of what their driveway looked like before that, except that it looked pretty much the same.
the tree is generally in good health otherwise, though it does leak a LOT of sap.
thats all for now.

 

[jmcguiretree]

Cut it down.Longer you wait, the more work it will be and more of a hazard it can be.Kill,Kill,Kill......

 

[treeseer]

Cut it down.Longer you wait, the more work it will be and more of a hazard it can be.Kill,Kill,Kill......

Groovy, blood and gore and guts and cellulose in your teeth, aarrrrrrrr! Just like Alice's Restaurant.
:taped:

the cut does not show a lot of big roots--they must run pretty deep. to lessen risk, thinning dead and weak stuff out of the top of the tree would help. for some reason--someone raising Cain?-- it has lost a lot of low branches, ruining its value as screen and making it top-heavy.

I like spruces, and I am a tree-hugger all the way, but if that was mine I would whack it and plant something that would block my view of the road. Butt ugly traffic, noise, pollution, yuck.

 

[oldugly]

Treeseer,
You forgot the veins....You can't quote Alice's restaurant without the group "w" bench, and the veins in my teeth. I wonder how many of the youngsters here even know what the heck I'm talking about...Thanks treeseer for bringing back memories of that stage....Oh yeah...the tree.

That spruce has seen its better days, and although by removing it you would lose a valuable resource to the landscape, replacing it with something of more aesthetic and functional value to you would be beneficial in the long run.

 

[lawmart]

the tree looks really close to the road , is a city tree or private tree I would find that out first .
If we cut down a city tree it is a big fine for the tree company and home owner. You said it drips sap does it have some type of borer ? it does look kinda thin.
these would be my two things to look into first.

Lawmart

Play safe

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I'm with Guy on this one, the rootplate does not look compromised from what we can see. What is the distance from the trunk to the cut?

The tree looks to be on a hillside, not the crest of the hill, other trees surrounding it. Is the top out of the high wind patterns? I would like to see a pic of the top to see incremental growth.

If I remember right, Ashville gets snow on a regular enough basis that is should have developed with some snowloading. How do the ice storms pass that altitude by for the snow?

The canopy is somewhat transparent, but that is typical of N spruce on high ground, they do best in a more mezic environment. I've seen them in hydric boundry soils doing phenominal. Terminal growth on the boughs looks good and even.

If heaving is a personal concern, I would go with a light spiral prune to thin. But not too much since the canopy is naturally thin. Though IMO this tree would heave only under the most adverce weather conditions.

Mulch with a composted chip and water more often...basic good cultural practices. Low N ammonia based ferts...

 

[Schultzz]

Butchers or Huggers

Most treecutters whether they be arborists or harvesters are conservationists too. We love to see healthy trees growing without having to cut them down unnecessarily. I would leave this tree alone for now. Keep checking it for its value to you and make sure it is safe. And.... enjoy its benefits.

 

[pbtree]

Sharpen the saw and start cutting!

 

[Blinky]

Treeseer,
You forgot the veins....You can't quote Alice's restaurant without the group "w" bench, and the veins in my teeth. I wonder how many of the youngsters here even know what the heck I'm talking about...Thanks treeseer for bringing back memories of that stage....Oh yeah...the tree.

Father rapers! Sittin' there right next to me on the group W bench!

 

[treeseer]

Some good arguments and strategies for keeping the tree. Owner's call. I just think a spruce that you can see through has lower value, but that is my bias based on a 17" picture.

oldugly, I substituted cellulose for veins; get it?

Blinky, when you get that look in your :Eye: I'll bet your daddy gets runnin' one step ahead of the sheep!

"I wanna ..... They pinned a medal on my chest and sent me down the hall, sayin' 'You're our boy'"

 

[Chucky]

What's the texture of the soils under the tree? Clayey, silty, sandy? Some combination thereof?

 

[osb_mail]

My opinion

If it was my house I would probably cut it down .Not because I think it poses any major hazard . As Treeseer said there are no large roots shown that are damaged .I far as I know Picea abies usually dont have really big roots (sorry about the Latin names I might keep my Dirr book to close to the computer ). It looks to me like the grade has changed more than just a ditch ran next to it . So the roots are going to have no place to grow or regrow on that side but I would take it out just because I am not too fond of older Picea abies ,it might have to do with the fact that with age they they become very open and they are way over used . I do like Picea abies pendula it the weeping norway spruce .

 

[Chucky]

Well, if the soils are very poorly drained, and if the prevailing winds blow from the tree to the house, I'd agree. Spruces are very shallow rooted, and if the soils are clayey, the soil may become saturated, and a good hard rain with moderately strong winds could possibly uproot the tree. I've seen it many times with Norway and Blue Spruces in clayey soils.

 

[winchman]

appreciate the interest

thanks for all the input everybody. i will have to check the soil to be sure, haven't dug many holes out front to see its actual composition, but from the pics it looks more like clay that it does like some nice loamy stuff.
to answer an earlier ?, it doesn't really snow much at all here. at least not in the time i've lived here (3 years, and about 3 combined inches of snow - woo hoo!).
thanks again, all the input comes in handy, i'll probably mulch it for now and maybe cut it down later. the wires i spoke of are hard to see, they are not the ones on the street, but those going to my house, and have branches practically on top of them.
when i do something, i'll send more pics.

 

[Tiger98]

Hard to tell exactly from the pics what the cut roots look like. If you are talking some of the large structural roots being cut, it's a no brainer. Other than that, the decision has nothing to do with the trench. If you don't want a spruce next to the house, take it out. Personally, I'm leaving it and trying to get it as healthy as possible.
Good news is you will have something to tell the people you talk to when they ask "What would you do if it were your tree?".