I have a pine tree in my back yard.  It’s a tall one.  I bet it’s fifty feet tall, maybe sixty.  It’s one of these with no branches most of the way up, and the only green is at the top.  Well, I was in the back yard a few weeks ago and I noticed bunch of little holes in the bark of my pine tree.  Odd, I though, so I gave it a few whacks with my knuckles.  Thump thump thump.  It didn’t sound right to me.  So I walked around to the other side and hit it again.  Knock knock knock.  Nice and solid.  Thump thump thump.  Knock knock knock.  Something was wrong.

I wondered what was behind those little holes in the bark so I grabbed a piece in the thumpiest area gave a little tug.  The bark came off surprisingly easily.  Inside the wood was rotten, sawdusty, and full of vertical voids.  Uh oh.

So I called up an arborist to come look at the tree.  He told me that the roots of the tree had suffered severe damage, probably during the construction of my house about 7 years ago.  The tree was fine for years, living off stored reserves, but eventually it started to become more susceptible to insects and disease.  When the insects moved in, so did the woodpeckers.  That’s what all those little holes were from, which is strange because I don’t remember hearing or seeing woodpeckers on the tree for the nearly 5 years I’ve lived in the house.  I did, however, see one after I found the damage but before the tree guy came.

He wouldn’t tell me “Cut it down.” or “It’s fine. Leave it.”  What he told me is this:  Pine trees are strong.  It takes a lot to bring one down.  They have a mechanism for isolating damaged sections from the healthy part of the tree, so it could stand indefinitely.  On the other hand, he tells me, the root damage is pretty severe and if I have the tree removed then I may find the the peace of mind is worth the expense and the loss of my tree.

He was careful to point out that he is not predicting that my tree will fall over.  But he did favor the removal of the tree and quoted me a price of about $1100 including stump grinding.  I’m not saying the guy is giving me biased advice.  I’m not saying that.  But if he cuts the tree down, he gets $1100.  So I think I’m going to get a second opinion.

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