- Location
- Asheville, NC
55\" Cucumber Magnolia
We had to remove a piece of history from the Biltmore Estate today.
There wasn't much of this tree left, just a couple branches. A lot of bark had already fallen off. But the tree was still alive.
It was known as the "Baby Tree" because it was planted in honor of Cornelia Vanderbilt's birth. My boss was a big proponent of keeping the tree as long as possible. But it's time came, and a new cucumber magnolia will be put in it's place as soon as possible.
I have lots of photos to share of the removal, which are pretty interesting, but for now a picture of the tree before the operation will have to suffice, since my camera is out of the office.
I will leave you with this thought, however: No matter how much you trust your crane operator, you must trust yourself and do as many calculations as possible before you start picking. Usually we just go small and conservative. Because this tree had special significance, we wanted to save the biggest pieces possible for use on the Estate. Good thing I trusted the green log weight chart (extrapolated version) instead of the crane operator's estimate.
The 10'6" log from the middle of the tree weighed 10,000 pounds.
Like I said, more pics to come if there is interest in this thread.
We had to remove a piece of history from the Biltmore Estate today.
There wasn't much of this tree left, just a couple branches. A lot of bark had already fallen off. But the tree was still alive.
It was known as the "Baby Tree" because it was planted in honor of Cornelia Vanderbilt's birth. My boss was a big proponent of keeping the tree as long as possible. But it's time came, and a new cucumber magnolia will be put in it's place as soon as possible.
I have lots of photos to share of the removal, which are pretty interesting, but for now a picture of the tree before the operation will have to suffice, since my camera is out of the office.
I will leave you with this thought, however: No matter how much you trust your crane operator, you must trust yourself and do as many calculations as possible before you start picking. Usually we just go small and conservative. Because this tree had special significance, we wanted to save the biggest pieces possible for use on the Estate. Good thing I trusted the green log weight chart (extrapolated version) instead of the crane operator's estimate.
The 10'6" log from the middle of the tree weighed 10,000 pounds.
Like I said, more pics to come if there is interest in this thread.
