General Discussion

There were several mature trees - beautiful evergreens, oaks, maples, a huge apple tree, a giant cherry tree - just a whole bunch. We still have an ancient hollow crabapple tree that continues to bear fruit. She's the "Queen of the Garden." The person who build our house was wise and planted shade trees on the south side of the house - a couple of maples.

One year we experienced a microburst on our property.
It was bizarre! In one area, it looked like a giant had come and carefully ripped up the trees and laid them out in a pattern. These were at least 70 feet tall. Since then one by one storms brought down other trees. Among the survivors there was one lone maple that I loved right outside the kitchen window that the kids called the 'fairy tree' when they were growing up. We've always had an arborist check out our trees every couple of years.

About 5 years ago a wild storm just blew down that 100+ year old maple - actually split it in half. It fell across the roof, breaking in half over the ridge almost hitting our neighbor's house as well. Because the storm was so bad, they couldn't lift the tree from the house -it had gone through the roof and into the attic. Rain kept pouring in and we had water all the way down to the basement. It took more than six months to repair all the damage.

We've replaced a bunch of trees with Linden, Sycamore, and Tulip Poplar, Hollies, Spruces, and some large shrubs. I miss the fairy tree though, but will never plant one so close to the house again.