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AIBU

Trees in the wrong place!

(32 Posts)
Cherrytree59 Sat 07-Nov-15 21:32:44

After a dismal morning the sun broke out , so DH and I decided to go for a walk. I have a bit of a dodgy ankle and it wasn't long before I went over on it due to tree roots lifting the tarmac and causing the foot path to be very uneven. Luckily DH caught my arm before I went down on my a**.
Why do people plant trees in the wrong place?
Whenever we have moved house I have had to cut down trees in the wrong place (ones in the right place are safe!). Our last drive was pushed up by the dreaded tree roots. When we moved to this house we had to chop down two eucalyptus trees , our new neighbors thanked us as they now had light in their dining room.
When our local supermarket opened they thought it a good idea to plant saplings in front of every other parking space, making it harder to park and now dropping wet leaves all over the cars and making the ground slippery in the rain.
I have nothing against trees as you can tell by my GN name. I love my cherry trees. I also have a lovely Rowan tree , an apple tree and a Magnolia all planted away from hard ground and windows. I also live by a beautiful forest
But can't understand why people don't consider that most trees grow big and have roots that can cause damage and inconvenience to others!

Galen Sat 21-Nov-15 11:51:36

Oh I forgot my acer which was magnificent this Autumn

Galen Sat 21-Nov-15 11:50:17

In my garden
3 pear trees
3 apple trees
1 mulberry
2 plum
1 beech
1 rowan
1 oak grown from an acorn by darling daughter, meant to be a bonsai but left out accidentally in the garden one year and now about 14 feet high.
Also a hedge of native trees.
I also have a fig, a eucalyptus and an apple on my front patio to say nothing of numerous limes, lemons etc

I thing I'm doing enough for trees.

BlackeyedSusan Sat 21-Nov-15 11:28:42

hs2 is just wrong. my friends house is in the wrong plcae too and will be demolished.

Cherrytree59 Mon 09-Nov-15 22:29:04

Just read your link Durhamjen. Perhaps on this occasion the Hs2 is in the wrong place smile

vampirequeen Mon 09-Nov-15 19:16:22

I live in a conservation area and I'm pleased to say that the tree hating newbies who have recently moved in haven't been able to cut down their trees.

I accept that if the roots undermine a property then they have to be cut down but otherwise leave them alone.

There was a programme on the Beeb a while ago that followed an oak over the course of a year. They estimated that a million creatures lived in or on the tree.

apricot Mon 09-Nov-15 18:50:37

Many people demand the removal of trees because they shade their houses and the autumn leaves are a nuisance. I love trees and think we should put up with the inconvenience in return for their beauty and environmental value but more will be doomed because councils have stopped sweeping the streets.
Pavements here are half-covered with weeds, leaves and litter and the drain gratings are blocked. Where a tree leans over the road the pavements are impassable with sodden leaves.
Will we ever get back any of the council services we have lost?

Greyduster Mon 09-Nov-15 18:42:44

The problem with cypress and leylandii is that when you lop the top off they grow outward not upward and can be more of a bally nuisance than when they are growing upward!

Ana Mon 09-Nov-15 17:58:08

Same here with Staghorn Sumac seedlings - the darned things spring up all over the place!

thatbags Mon 09-Nov-15 17:44:21

I pull up dozens of seedling trees every year: ash, downy birch, sycamore, spruce, wild cherry, holly. If anyone wants any let me know and I'll post some to you.

durhamjen Mon 09-Nov-15 17:22:23

Yes, roses, I did realise.
I hope the tree you took down did not have a preservation order on it, like the one that vampire talked about on another thread.

rosesarered Sun 08-Nov-15 23:38:21

We took out a fifty foot conifer in the back garden last year, no guilt at all, it was dark and brooding and had to go.

rosesarered Sun 08-Nov-15 23:36:53

I think Ana meant joke guilt , hard to feel truly guilty about taking down a tree in the wrong place.

durhamjen Sun 08-Nov-15 23:23:15

Well, you can buy some anyway, to make you feel good. Just in case you then decide to get rid of that conifer altogether.

Ana Sun 08-Nov-15 23:20:48

No, I won't, as I haven't actually got rid of any trees in my garden.

durhamjen Sun 08-Nov-15 23:06:45

Just buy some trees through the Woodland Trust, Ana, to make up for it, feeling guilty, that is.

Ana Sun 08-Nov-15 22:55:43

Oh, trust you to find an article to make us all feel guilty, durhamjen! grin

durhamjen Sun 08-Nov-15 22:49:44

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34749065

Tree of the Year in the wrong place.

Ana Sun 08-Nov-15 18:37:20

Conifers can be a menace in gardens! We had one alongside our drive which was growing so tall and bushy it was blocking light from the garden and looked out of place, frankly.

We had it severely lopped by a rather expensive tree surgeon a few years ago and it made a big difference - but now it has redoubled its growing efforts and is if anything bigger and bushier than before...sad

Anya Sun 08-Nov-15 16:25:59

We have some kind of conifer in our small front garden which was about as high as our house. It needed taking down, but a family of wood pigeons had a nest in it and raise brood after brood after brood of squabs.

We tried to take it down in October 2014 only to find another lot of babies in residence so left it standing. This year in August I hatched (!) a Cunning Plan and had DH cut a lower branch off each week. The wood pigeons eventually took the hint and rehomed themselves and the tree gradually disappeared from the bottom up until only an umbrella-shaped top was left.

This now attracts a flock of long tailed tits every morning about 11 o'clock when they appear and chatter away and feed on the little insects they seem to find in the remaining branches before flying off after about an hour.

I can't win!

Greyduster Sun 08-Nov-15 15:15:21

We had a forty foot Norway Spruce about ten feet from the back wall of our previous house. It had started life as an indoor Christmas tree many years before we bought the place. The roots were growing across the lawn and surfacing through the grass, and I started to worry about where else the roots might be going, so we reluctantly took it down. Like others have said, we got far more light into the garden, but it was always full of lovely birds - goldcrests, greenfinches, goldfinches, a visiting sparrowhawk hmm and even, one bad winter, a waxwing! They never came back, even though there were other trees in the garden. The subject of trees is very emotive, even when they are lining roads and are not in your garden. Here in one of our leafier suburbs, the council decided to cut down some trees in a road where the roots were causing a nuisance. You've no idea what a broohaha it has caused, even though they were going to replace them with less troublesome species. There have been petitions and letters to the paper and a proper war of words. I expect the council were fed up of being sued by people who had fallen over the heaving pavements.

tanith Sun 08-Nov-15 13:14:54

We had to cut down two conifers (they were there when we bought) as one was leaning onto the other , since they are gone the sun now shines through the other trees and makes the whole dark corner of our garden light up, I've now planted primroses , bulbs and hardy cyclamen there and intend on some 'white' planting to lighten it even more .

I wish we'd done it years ago as it lifts the whole bottom of the garden.

M0nica Sun 08-Nov-15 12:51:39

I am very, very loathe to cut down trees, but this year I had a tall yew cut down in the garden. It shaded half the garden most of the day, shaded one corner so thoroughly nothing I tried would grow there and half the lawn was 90% moss. I replaced it with a silver birch, I always replace trees I cut down.

I have spent the whole summer wondering why I didn't have it cut down years ago. The grass is as moss free as it can be, I have planted a rockery in the dark corner, and it is doing well and the extra sunlight sets off superbly the huge hazel tree at the end of the garden, which I would never, ever cut down.

granjura Sun 08-Nov-15 09:55:12

well yes, in as much that privet and yew have been largely replaced by ... faster growing species.

Hunt Sun 08-Nov-15 09:38:02

eucalyptus trees grow faster in this country than in their native Australia, I think it is because we have more rain. I knew it was time to get rid of ours when my neighbour across the road, who lives in a bungalow , said she could see the top of our eucalyptus tree, which was in our back garden, when she was lying in bed! ( do the sums- bed, bungalow, road, tall house!)

soontobe Sun 08-Nov-15 08:40:06

Is it me, or do trees and hedges for that matter, grow faster and a lot bigger than they used to?