Sad to say this, but I am taking down a 95 year old Ash this Saturday. It is only 3'dbh and 65' tall. The reason for removal is because during a trim I found a major hazard. The trimming history of the tree was poor. As usual some one topped the tree about 20 years ago. 15' off the ground there is co-dominance. The house is on the heavy side of this leaning leader. To make it worse. The crotch of this had a stub sticking out of it about 3' high. Well, during my Crown Clean I cut it back. After I cut it I realized that there was a lot of decay introduced to the tree. I took my had saw and picked at it. I picked and picked at soft, rotten wood. It made me nervous discovering more. The leader is about 26" in diameter and I dug into this about 18". If I had something better to dig with I would have hit China!
I'm doing a crane removal with this to be able to mill the wood. I could not live with myself cutting this into firewood for some one to burn. At least, now this wood can be used and admired for possibly 100's of years in some one's home.
Moral of the story: This stub was acting like a straw intro-ducing decay to the tree. And topping was to blame! /forum/images/graemlins/ukliam2.gif
