worked on what could be the oldest albizia in maui

[Maui Palm & Tree Care]

i picked up an awesome new client today. he owns a ranch in waikapu maui. the tree im working on is a 150 year old albizia saman(monkey pod). it is over 60 feet high and has a spread of 80 feet!!! it's soooo big that i cant limb walk to the edges to reduce the tip wiehgt. we need to get an articulating lift to reach them. today was mostly dead wood, some over 14" diameter. all in all good day. i feel soo blessed and honored to have worked on a tree soo old and soo big. it was a blast and im still not done with it!!. i also did a crown cleaning of a 30 foot ficus and felled a young 20 foot monkey pod. i was the only one working. no groundie today so i had to peice the wood down and then come down and slice and dice the branches. thank god for big fun tree's. the ranch owner was soo impressed with me that at the end of the day we drank 2 beers and he gave me a tour of his 140 acre ranch in the 4x4 cart. I LOVE MY JOB!!

 

[guymayor]

Sounds like a great day! I love it when you get to relax with the owners. btw owners often really like pics of their land taken from the tree.

How was the tree aged at 150 years? The albizias I saw at Lyons were gi-normous, but they grow so fast I doubt they were that old.

Articulating lifts are handy to have, but poles can reach some of those tip cuts, and/or set redirects. Hard to get a good angle though.

 

[treesandsurf]

[ QUOTE ]
How was the tree aged at 150 years? The albizias I saw at Lyons were gi-normous, but they grow so fast I doubt they were that old.


[/ QUOTE ]

Oops sorry I just re-read your post, if it is a monkeypod tree maybe 150 years old, but that's really old for a monkeypod. I was thinking albizia falcatara, my bad

jp

 

[Maui Palm & Tree Care]

no not falcatara, it's a albizzia saman. today i finished the dead wooding and started the spread reduction. i also did a crown cleaning and raising on the second ficus tree. more beers and laughs at the end of the day!

guymayor,

there was a second tree that got blown over in the wind a couple months back and they counted the rings and estimated 200 years old! the one im working on is a little bit smaller and was estimated to be 150 years! i have noticed though, there is lots of rotten hollow branches with older tree's

 

[guymayor]

Wow that is old then. Punky old things--getting rid of them busted the budget at the arboretum there a few years back, I hear.

Be careful up there!

 

[Maui Palm & Tree Care]

they had to hire a guy to come with a 7 foot bar just to cut the trunk into slabs. my 395 only runs a sharp 36" :/

 

[Bermie]

Our Albizzia is A. lebbeck,(pride of india) very pretty tree, deciduous with pale lilac flowers followed by yellow berries...brittle though and tends to rot if not pruned properly, the wood turners love it. The biggest one I've worked on was probably 30' high with a 40' spread, huge trunk and beautifully shaped, probably approaching 100yrs.

Got to love those yeehaa days!

 

[treesandsurf]

The monkeypods were only recently put into the genus albizia (within last year or two), for many years they were samanea.

jp

 

[Maui Palm & Tree Care]

wow thats pretty cool treesandsurf.
the one thing i hate about those tree's is lots of stuck throw bags and late summer when they are sprouting they give off a sticky sap in the leafs. also massive black carpenter bees.

 

[treesandsurf]

Ha, yeah those carpenter bees are a trip when you feel the vibration in your handsaw when cutting out deadwood..

jp

 

[Maui Palm & Tree Care]

luckly i had no bee's in the wood this time but, i did cut a dead branch out that had a rotten hole in the middle with a centipede. haha! i cut half the body of the centipede when i made the stub cut. half the body fell out with the piece of the branch. those things give me the heebee jeebees. you guys in the east coast are lucky to not have centipedes!!!