Widow / Widower Maker Signs

[Doctari]

Last Tuesday AM (I guess, the wind didn't pick up till around 2) a perfectly healthy LOOKING tree, fell in to my yard from my back neighbors yard. Had I been sleeping where I usually do, it would have missed me by about 35', At my alternate spot, the Catalpa it knocked branches off of, would have just missed my hammock, possibly taking out my tarp. I just looked at the tree to see what species, WOW, It's a Locust, that is a HARD wood. Thankfully, only the top 35' or so of a 70' tall tree fell, or my hanging trees would have been in danger.
Needless to say, I was surprised that this tree fell. I probably shouldn't have been, this same tree dropped a limb on, that's ON my camp site about 10 years ago while I was at work one night, but has shown NO issues since.
So, be careful, be selective, & as the saying used to go: "you pay your money you take your chances!"
Sorry I don't have any solid tips for figuring out which trees will kill you, other than to say: if it looks sketchy, even if you can't say why, move on. I avoid: trees with woodpecker holes (bug infestation.) Ash trees (Emerald ash borer). Willows seem to drop branches A LOT, even healthy ones. Sycamores do that almost as much.

[DelayedNeutron]

Just got back from an area (South Mills River) where (by my estimate) 60-70% of the trees are dead, or on their absolute last leg, hemlocks due to the adelgid. Find a hang, look up, move on to the next one. I finally just picked a good pair where the nearest potential deadfall would have had to bounce off one of my supporting trees on the way down. Given that the weather radio was predicting 25 mph gusts on Saturday (which never materialized), I was being very very cautions about my setup.

We certainly did our part to dispose of some of the dead down and detached debris with our nightly offering to Logi and Hephaestus.

[Gqgeek81]

Aside from myself, I can think of 3 other forum members who have had tree's they were tied to fall. That sort of freaks me out but as it suggests its rather common but I don't think so.

As for the ancient pines, I avoid them. The kind I have near me almost always have a ton of large dead limbs way up in tree.

[Canahang]

I'm not sure if it's as much of a problem in the US as it is in Canada but we have had an infestation of Emerald Ash borers (to the point that you aren't allowed to bring outside wood into provincial parks). These buggers just tear trees up in Ontario Canada. We have had a couple bad ice storms in the winters that are causing trees to fall due in part to the damage that these guys have caused.

I'm not 100% sure if they ONLY feed on ash trees (I don't notice a lot of ash trees in southern Ontario forests) but I know that MANY residences have ash trees on property. Might be something to think about

http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/forests/fire-...-insects/13377


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[LuvmyBonnet]

I'm not sure if it's as much of a problem in the US as it is in Canada but we have had an infestation of Emerald Ash borers (to the point that you aren't allowed to bring outside wood into provincial parks). These buggers just tear trees up in Ontario Canada. We have had a couple bad ice storms in the winters that are causing trees to fall due in part to the damage that these guys have caused.

I'm not 100% sure if they ONLY feed on ash trees (I don't notice a lot of ash trees in southern Ontario forests) but I know that MANY residences have ash trees on property. Might be something to think about

http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/forests/fire-...-insects/13377


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Yep, we are having the same issue. Those little buggers are reeking havoc on the elms. We also have restictions on the transportation of wood.

[john99]

I saw a really large ash tree with holes in it yesterday hiking.

[Doctari]

A neighbor 3 houses S of me, lost a HUGE & Beautiful Ash 2 years ago, now my (Much younger, less beautiful) Ash is dying. I give it to the end of 2017, , , , if it lives that long.
Driving by a City park (mostly woodlands in that area) I would guess that 2 of about 15 trees WAS an Ash. A lot of dead trees, where less than 5 years ago a dead tree was rare. Most of the hiking trails are closed, or "Proceed with extreme caution" all due to the number of dead trees in the park.

I'm not sure if it's as much of a problem in the US as it is in Canada but we have had an infestation of Emerald Ash borers (to the point that you aren't allowed to bring outside wood into provincial parks). These buggers just tear trees up in Ontario Canada. We have had a couple bad ice storms in the winters that are causing trees to fall due in part to the damage that these guys have caused.

I'm not 100% sure if they ONLY feed on ash trees (I don't notice a lot of ash trees in southern Ontario forests) but I know that MANY residences have ash trees on property. Might be something to think about

http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/forests/fire-...-insects/13377


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[OutandBack]

I'm not sure if it's as much of a problem in the US as it is in Canada but we have had an infestation of Emerald Ash borers (to the point that you aren't allowed to bring outside wood into provincial parks). These buggers just tear trees up in Ontario Canada. We have had a couple bad ice storms in the winters that are causing trees to fall due in part to the damage that these guys have caused.

I'm not 100% sure if they ONLY feed on ash trees (I don't notice a lot of ash trees in southern Ontario forests) but I know that MANY residences have ash trees on property. Might be something to think about

http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/forests/fire-...-insects/13377

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In Colorado we have the The mountain pine beetle Dendroctonus ponderosae. All the brown you see on the hillside is dead pine trees.

[LowTekk]

In the southeastern US, we have fast-growing pine trees that are about as stable as a three-legged stool under a 500 pound drunk. Their roots are shallow, and they shed limbs like water. On a more personal note, a prime example of southern pine came down on our house when I was a kid. Looking at it even two hours before the storm, you'd SWEAR it was never going to fall... but there it was laying across the house. My mother's nearly completed bedroom addition had to be torn down and rebuilt. Just one more reason why living in the dirty south is at times defined a mixed blessing.

[Meezer]

In the southeastern US, we have fast-growing pine trees that are about as stable as a three-legged stool under a 500 pound drunk. Their roots are shallow, and they shed limbs like water. On a more personal note, a prime example of southern pine came down on our house when I was a kid. Looking at it even two hours before the storm, you'd SWEAR it was never going to fall... but there it was laying across the house. My mother's nearly completed bedroom addition had to be torn down and rebuilt. Just one more reason why living in the dirty south is at times defined a mixed blessing.

My brother calls those pine trees "self-pruners." I have a sweet gum in my yard now that is a self-pruner too. To me it has nothing obviously wrong with it -- no dead branches, nothing wrong with the trunk, etc. It does have less than normal amount of lower branches.. A large branch came down a couple of month ago. Before the branch came down, a tree guy told me to watch that tree. He didn't see anything blatant, but something didn't seem right to him. At the time, kept thinking that it looks OK to me. LoL Now I think I just need a deeper knowledge of trees near me. Guessing at the very least need to come up with a short list of what to avoid. The local pines are at the top of my short list, along with certain sweet gums.

I am handicapped in that I lived in Miami for over thirty years, and the trees there are just so different than other places in the US. I saw a large healthy ficus tree (a tropical tree) slowly topple over, It was it's healthy, heavy canopy and shallow root system that made it so top heavy that a week of RAIN (not wind) caused it to fall.